5/16/2007

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, was scheduled to reintroduced S. 2611, the CIR which was passed in the Senate last year and take up the CIR debate on Monday, May 14, 2007. However, at the last minute, Senator Reid decided to move the CIR mark-up to Thursday, May 16, 2007 to give a last chance for the ten bi-partisan negotiators to reach a compromise. 

Reportedly, Senator Ken Salazar from Colorado is playing an active role to mediate the differences to iron out a compromise between the two party leaders. If the bi-partisan group fails to come up with a compromise, the Senate will be ready to take up the CIR debate based on the 2006 version. Please stay tuned to this website for the latest development of CIR negotiation.

The leaders of the two parties are supposed to reach an agreement. Otherwise, there will be a huge showdown between a few Republican Senators and the majority Democrats in the Senate. Report indicates that the Democrats will keep the door open for the compromise and additionally allow amendments introduced on the floor. At the same time, the Democratic leaders in the Senate appear to be ready to move very quickly, should things go wrong, and pass the CIR which they had already passed last year. Please stay tuned to this website to experience an excitement involving this drama which will be unfolded during the next two weeks.

Once the Senate passes the CIR, the showdown is expected to move to the stage of the House where the House version of the compromise bill, STRIVE Act of 2007 is pending. There is likely that the Chairwoman of the Immigration Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee may introduce her immigration bill based on a series of the immigration oversight hearings during the last two weeks. If things move along without a big showdown in the House, the Senate bill and the House bill go to the Conference Committee of the Senate-House. Should the CIR reach such stage, there will be a good chance to see a CIR passed in the Congress this year. 

Otherwise, the immigration reform legislation will totally fail for the next two years and the country will continue to suffer from the ailment in the current broken immigration system. No matter what, we urge the Congress to pass a CIR in one form or another. They are supposed to be masters of negotiation and compromise. The critical failure of the 109th Congress in this country which turned out to be "Do-Nothing-Congress" was everybody in the Congress having a deaf-ear and refusing to do their mandated mission to use their negotiation and compromise skills and produce legislations.