The aggressive, uncivil, and in-your-face ways in which amnesty advocates have recently harassed lawmakers in Congress to pressure them to pass comprehensive immigration reform have backfired, according to the inside-the-beltway publication Politico.
Politico notes that amnesty advocates are in “all-out harassment mode” and have “taken a decidedly sharper, more aggressive turn” after conservative opposition to a pathway to citizenship provision, which the Congressional Budget Office determined would lower the wages of working class Americans, blocked comprehensive immigration reform from passing this year. But they have not been persuasive.
“They’ve killed reform. It’s over. It’s dead. They killed it,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), who supports immigration reform, told Politico. “I begged them not to do crazy things, and they decided to be crazy. Now it’s dead. That’s what they get. It’s stupid. Why target the people who actually want to do reform?”
The Senate, behind the efforts of Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), John McCain (R-AZ), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), passed comprehensive immigration reform, but legislation has not moved in the House. Though House Republican leaders have said they do not want to go to conference on the exact Senate bill, they have not ruled out the option of going to conference on various piecemeal legislation. President Barack Obama recently said he would not mind if immigration reform were broken up into parts so long as all the parts passed. And Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) has said his “Republican friends” have told him they want an immigration bill that is comprehensive immigration reform in everything but name only.
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