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Henry Fernandez, an adviser to Reform Immigration for America, works on the campaign in a conference room at the National Immigration Forum office that doubles as the campaign’s strategy room.
WASHINGTON — Advocacy groups are preparing to ramp up the pressure for immigration reform when Congress returns to the Capitol next week.
The conventional wisdom has been that the Democrats will avoid taking on an issue as contentious as immigration after the bruising health care fight and before the November midterm elections, but immigration reform advocates say they hope to see legislation introduced in the Senate in the next month.
Martine Apodaca, spokesman for Reform Immigration for America coalition said the group will push for senators who support immigration reform to make their positions clear. The campaign will kick off with rallies in a number of cities, including Las Vegas and Seattle, this Saturday.
“We’re confident that in the next few weeks we’ll have legislation,” Apodaca said.
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., presented a framework for immigration reform legislation in a Washington Post op-ed in March. Their plan included both stepped-up border enforcement and a path to legalization for illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. The senators’ proposal also included a program for admitting temporary workers and implementation of a biometric Social Security card.
To move forward as a bill, advocates said the proposal needs to clear a number of hurdles, including finding a second Republican co-sponsor. Business and labor groups also need to reach a consensus on how to manage the future flow of legal immigrant workers.
A Graham representative said via e-mail that the senator is awaiting an immigration reform proposal from President Barack Obama and cited a March 14 interview with ABC This Week in which Graham criticized the president for leaving the heavy lifting to Congress. Schumer’s press secretary did not return a call seeking comment.
Marc Rosenblum, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Insitute, was dubious about the prospects of legislation in 2010.
“It’s probably more likely than not that we won’t get a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year,” he said.
Rosenblum said that the slow economy and high unemployment rate will work against the passage of a bill. And while both parties are concerned about the Latino vote, Rosenblum said that Democrats would likely benefit more than Republicans from passing an immigration reform bill.
But Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at Center for American Progress, which is part of the Reform Immigration for America campaign, said despite the obstacles, there are a number of factors in favor of the effort.
“It’s really one of the only issues where it has been bipartisan in the past and where business and labor have come together before,” Kelley said. “… There’s no way this problem is going to fix itself. There’s a policy imperative, and there’s a political imperative, and that’s gotten more and more intense in the last few years.”
Apodaca was also undeterred by the skeptics.
“There are a lot of cynics in D.C., and the conventional wisdom is frequently wrong,” he said.