Immigration reform hits gridlock

Flag1The deepening gloom surrounding the hope of immigration reform in the United States being achieved has been added to by President Barack Obama voicing his doubts that there seems to be no sign that the House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Republican Party, intends to advance new legislation on the issue any time soon.

“I don’t think we’re going to see it before the August recess,” Obama admitted to a Telemundo television channel affiliate in Denver during an interview that was screened late on Tuesday.  “If in fact the House recognized the smart thing, the right thing to do, was to go ahead and send the Senate bill to the floor for a vote, I think it would pass tomorrow.”

The House of Representatives has balked at the notion of giving its approval to a bipartisan Senate bill that would increase border security while also offering a path to US citizenship for the nation’s approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants.  If the bill were to pass into law eventually, it would be the biggest reform of the country’s immigration system for almost three decades.

The supporters of the Senate immigration bill had been pinning their hopes on being able to rally Republicans into voting for the bill due to the way that the increasingly powerful Hispanic vote turned on them during last year’s Presidential election, but many Republicans in the House of Representatives, especially those that represent conservative districts with a low Hispanic population, are against the bill, perceiving it as offering amnesty to lawbreakers.