Immigration reform plan could be ready by week’s end

FLAGfffWith the Senate returning from its Easter recess this week, Senator Chuck Schumer says that he is confident that the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” is going to have completed their plan for immigration reform by the end of the week.

“We hope that we can have a bipartisan agreement among the eight of us on comprehensive immigration reform by the end of the week,” Schumer told the CBS program Face the Nation.  “Over the last two weeks we’ve made great progress.  There have been kerfuffles along the way, but each one of those, thus far, have been settled.”

Schumer says that the staff members who work for each member of the Gang of Eight have been putting in 12-hour days in order to fine-tune the details of the plan for US immigration reform and make sure that an agreement has been reached on all of the issues concerned.  On Meet the Press on NBC, Senator Lindsey Graham expressed the view that it could take another couple of weeks.

Senator John McCain has also criticized comments made by Senator Marco Rubio, disputing the notion that the plans are being rushed.  He told Face the Nation that he rejected the idea that something was being railroaded through – adding: “This is the beginning of the process, not the end of it.”  Rubio has been defended by Graham, however, who says he will only come to the party if a merit-based immigration system and guest worker program is embraced by the Democrats.