Life and politics rarely proceed in a straight line. And that goes for the possibility of real immigration reform in a Republican-controlled Senate.
The actual numbers of Republican Senators, new and old, who would support real immigration reform, as opposed to a 2015 clone of the Democrats' 2013 effort, is a question mark.
There is no doubt that remaining Democrats in the Senate, and there will still be plenty of them, would unite behind a bill like the one passed in 2013, if they got the chance. They would be joined in that effort by the Senate's two "independents," who are generally reliable Democratic votes.
We do not yet know what the six newly elected Republican Senators (who would give the GOP a majority) know about immigration reform or what their views are regarding the various elements that might go into any Senate legislation. They may lean toward Schumer-type legislation or Sessions-type skepticism.
However those particular numbers break, Democrats and their Republican allies still can muster a great deal of rhetorical and political firepower in support of a 2015 clone of the 2013 Senate bill.
Still, there are some significant differences between Republican and Democratic control of the Senate, with implications for real immigration reform. One is that Republican control would mean the Senate Judiciary Committee would be led by Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), rather than by Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Sen. Leahy voted for the 2013 Senate bill; Sen. Grassley did not.
However, the real differences here lie in the use of the broad powers of the committee chair, and the new direction in which a new Republican chair like Mr. Grassley could lead the committee. In consultation with both majority and minority committee members, the chair can schedule hearings and help determine how many there are, the nature of their subject matter, and what witnesses are called. I would expect all of those elements to be quite different under Sen. Grassley than they were under Sen. Leahy.
Sen. Grassley might choose to convene legislative hearings on a number of questions that have never been addressed by the Democratic controlled Senate, such as:
- Exactly how quickly could mandatory work verification procedures be introduced for new and then old hires?
- What kinds of criteria should be instituted for those applying for legalization?
- What kinds of parallel processes would be possible to take steps on legalization, but not confer it without progress on enforcement first?
- Giving up something important in return for the opportunity to legalize will strike Americans as both necessary and fair, but what should the givebacks a part of a "Immigration Fair Deal" be?
- What issues for the country – in terms of assimilation, sustainability, public support, diversity of the immigration stream, current levels of employment, the mix of higher and lower skill workers, crime, and national security – arise with our current one million-plus levels of legal immigration?
- How would the above issues be affected by raising legal immigration levels by almost 100 percent, as the 2013 Senate bill allowed?
- What would ordinary Americans – not politicians, pundits, high-tech CEOs, labor union leaders, professional ethnic group advocates, religious leaders, and other interested parties – like see happen in any real reform measures?
The point of these questions is that they have rarely been asked or answered. To date, the immigration debate has been dominated by parties with a large vested interest (see point 7 above) and a single narrative: narrowed enforcement plus a pathway to citizenship.
These interests are perfectly legitimate to hold, even if the analysis supporting them is often as weak as the hyperbole used to promote them is strong. However, they should in no way be confused with immigration reform in the public interest.
Next: Immigration Reform in a Republican-Controlled Senate, Pt. 4