House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is writing a bill that would grant legal status to America’s at least 11 million illegal immigrants, The New York Times reports.
“Republican Representatives Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida have been working on legislation that includes a process by which immigrants here illegally could ‘get right with the law’ and eventually become citizens,” the Times’ Eric Lipton and Ashley Parker wrote on Friday in a piece about immigration reform.
While the Times reported here, and Politico reported on Friday morning, that the Speaker and other House GOP leadership figures are privately saying they do not expect a vote on immigration measures this year, publicly they say they want to hold a vote on something on the floor of the House.
Technically, there are only 19 legislative days left in 2013’s calendar for the House, so doing so would be difficult. But it appears, according to liberal blogger Greg Sargent, that the public appearance of immigration reform being “dead” may be a coordinated leak system from the House GOP leadership in order to distract conservatives.
“Either GOP leaders are leaking that there will be no vote, in order to quiet fears on the right while they decide what to vote on,” Sargent wrote on Friday. “Or they are letting it be known that they “hope” to have a vote, to defer any political fallout that might come from killing reform, in the full intention of doing just that. Take your pick.”
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