Last Thursday, at a closed-door meeting between senior Democratic senators and immigration reform advocates, the parties concluded that passing a comprehensive bill would be an extremely tall order this year because of stiff GOP opposition and uneasiness among some Democratic moderates. A number of advocates felt that bringing up a bill this year, only to see it fail, could set back reform efforts for years, according to several people familiar with the meeting.
So Reid and his allies are considering abandoning a comprehensive bill until after November, for possible action in a post-election session or in the 112th Congress, which begins in January 2011.
Where does that leave Reid with the Latinos he’s wooing back home? Looking for smaller victories.
Reform advocates are beginning to lobby fence-sitting Republicans to see if they’d go along with supporting narrower immigration issues this year — strictly dealing with undocumented agricultural workers and children of illegal immigrants.
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