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That amendment passed, too? It seems Sessions and company are chipping away at this bill little by little...but will it end up being enough to be effective?
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It doesn't have to be. It's moving in the right direction to walk into conference. The House Senate conference will move it even more in the right direction.
The President has strong feelings about people who walk across the border to find work. His feelings are less strong about short cutting the already strict requirements for naturalized citizenship. The Senate is sending out a bill with a GW total of only 200K. I don't think the Democrats realize how small that is.
The conference will reduce this further and add the condition of a 2/3 supermajority in both houses required to raise that number. That's the crusher. The Democrats think they can jack that number later. By putting a supermajority condition on it they are maneuvered into a corner.
Then by adding English required, 10 years wait, pay fine, pay an estimate of back taxes, make a self financed trip to the border to "get in line" (the line will move fast) and you have enough hoops to jump through that anyone who does would probably make a fine American.
The House Senate conference will also add miles to that fence.
This is moving in the right direction. I don't think it was anticipated that the Senate would report out a bill that the House / Senate conference could actually adjust even further rightward to something explicitly abhorrent to the Democrats and actually something that gives us a fence plus severe punishment of those who broke the law and a GW program so small that it is almost invisible.
Interesting take. I hope you are right.
BTW, with 4 million in line to immigrate to the US legally the INS workers have 4 minutes to examine each file. Now add 12 to 20 million to that total, and tell me how long they are going to have to examine each file?