I want to personally invite you to join an important conversation this Thursday evening we’ll be hosting live on our Facebook page with Bill Kristol, director of Defending Democracy Together and former Chief of Staff to Vice President Dan Quayle, to talk about the budget reconciliation process and what it means for immigration reform. RSVP for the event here.
The reconciliation process was created to bring order to federal budgeting and encourage budgetary savings. Because the reconciliation process is not subject to Senate filibuster rules, it requires only a simple majority in the Senate. There are a number of rules restricting its use, but it has increasingly been used by both parties to enact major policy changes.
Congressional Democrats are expected to include provisions providing for significant immigration reforms in a large reconciliation package they will be advancing this summer and fall, including granting a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, farmworkers, and other essential workers. While a Democratic reconciliation bill is unlikely to gain bipartisan support and has a number of procedural hurdles to overcome, it does potentially represent a path forward to obtain needed immigration reforms.
With Congress engaging in an extended debate over reconciliation in the coming weeks and months, we thought it would be helpful to unpack the process and the politics. And we could think of no better person to have this discussion with than Bill Kristol.
On Monday, Bill co-authored a Washington
Post op-ed with Janet Murguía, President and CEO of UnidosUS, calling for the inclusion of needed immigration reforms in the Democratic reconciliation package. In the piece, they wrote: "Most Americans don’t see this as a partisan issue. Republicans,
unfortunately, seem unwilling to work seriously to find a solution to this problem. If Democrats must go it alone, they are doing so not to advance some political agenda, but for the good of the country."
Thursday’s conversation will discuss the reconciliation process, the opportunity it provides to advance immigration legislation, and what the debate over what reconciliation s for the broader conversation around achieving bipartisan, lasting immigration reforms.
I look forward to seeing you there!
President & CEO
National Immigration Forum
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