House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants immigration reform measures included in the $3.5 trillion budget measure that Democrats will try to pass with no Republican support.
During a Friday press conference with Democratic House leadership, Pelosi (D-Calif.) supported the move, saying her colleagues have a “very good case.”
“I do believe that immigration should be in the reconciliation, some piece of that, in the reconciliation,” she said. “We know we have a very good case for this to be included.”
Budget reconciliation allows the majority party to bypass the legislative filibuster, the Senate rule requiring 60 members to end debate on most topics and move forward to a vote.
Pelosi’s comments come one day after President Biden made similar remarks.
“I think we should include in the reconciliation bill: the immigration proposal,” Biden told reporters outside the White House on Thursday.
Biden had earlier in the day met with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman and Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ), two of the leaders on the Senate side for immigration reform, as well as Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM). Together, the group discussed including in the budget a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, people originally promised such under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), House Hispanic Caucus Chairman Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) and fellow California Democratic Reps. Linda Sánchez, Zoe Lofgren, Pete Aguilar and Lucille Roybal-Allard were also in the meeting on behalf of the lower house of Congress.
Durbin emphasized the president’s support following the meeting.
“He knows the challenges we face. He’s with us. He made it clear to us, unequivocally clear that he stands with our efforts,” he said.
Democrats in the Senate are looking to pass the reconciliation budget before the August recess, starting Aug 9. In order to pass, the Democrats will need all their members to vote in favor, as the Senate is split 50-50. Vice President Kamala Harris, as Senate president, has a tie-breaking vote.
“Reconciliation is the only option,” Nadler told reporters, stressing the urgency of getting the matter passed by whatever means necessary — in this case, without any Republican support for it.
Under the reconciliation process, certain measures regarding revenues, spending and the debt can be approved with a 51-vote threshold, which is why Democrats are pursuing it. The process allows them to bypass a near-certain filibuster from Republicans.
But there’s a catch: The Senate’s nonpartisan parliamentarian can rule for the removal of any provision not directly related to the budget, or items whose budget impact is “merely incidental” to their intended policy changes.
In a statement, Cortez Masto offered some details of what items Democrats could choose to include in the $3.5 trillion package, such as a pathway to citizenship for farmworkers, essential workers from the pandemic and those who already hold Temporary Protected Status.
“For decades, politicians have refused to act to fix our broken immigration system, and this is our opportunity to ensure we are treating workers and families with dignity. A reconciliation bill that balances border security with a path to citizenship for Dreamers, TPS holders, farm and essential workers will create jobs, boost our economy, and lift up working families across Nevada and the nation,” the Nevada Democrat said.
The meeting came days after Biden admitted that Democrats were looking to include a pathway to citizenship in their $3.5 trillion budget package.
“There must be a pathway to citizenship,” he said Sunday, “whether it needs to be in [reconciliation] remains to be seen.”
Democrats and immigrant advocates have felt a newfound urgency to address the legal status of Dreamers in recent weeks, following a federal judge in Texas ruling earlier this month that the program was unlawful.
The judge also blocked new applicants, leaving those who are still waiting to hear back from the program in limbo.
It was not originally clear if addressing the DACA program, passed in 2012 to give work permits to and protect from deportation people brought illegally to the US as minors, would be possible through Democrats’ reconciliation deal.
Budget reconciliation allows the majority party to bypass the legislative filibuster, the Senate rule requiring 60 members to end debate on most topics and move forward to a vote.
Biden split his infrastructure package, a centerpiece of his post-COVID agenda, into two parts for Congress to pass.
The first, the “American Jobs Plan,” focused on hard infrastructure, while the second, the “American Families Plan,” is aimed at funding Democrats’ domestic policy platform.
Republicans took issue with the second package, which they argue stretches the definition of infrastructure. The first package, meanwhile, took a backseat to a bipartisan deal brokered in the Senate.
The GOP negotiators on the compromise agreement said Wednesday that they reached an agreement on the details of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill — salvaging a blueprint brokered last month by Biden.
The Senate voted 67-32 to advance debate on the critical legislation later that evening.
