"Rubio succeeds in weakening immigration reform push"

[ProSense]

The Morning Plum: The ground shifts on immigration

Posted by Greg Sargent

Today a bipartisan group of Senators will unveil the framework for a major new immigration reform bill. You can read the framework right here...The rub is that the process for putting undocumented immigrants — who will be granted probationary legal status — on a path to citizenship is contingent on a commission deciding that the border is secure. The framework describes that commission this way:

We recognize that Americans living along the Southwest border are key to recognizing and understanding when the border is truly secure. Our legislation will create a commission of governors, attorneys general and community leaders living along the southwest border to monitor the progress of securing our border and to make a recommendation regarding when the bill’s security measures outlined in the legislation are completed.

The fate of immigration reform, then, largely rests on what this commission looks like, who is on it, and what metric it uses to decide when the border is secure. At first glance, doesn’t this basically constitute giving people like Arizona Governor Jan Brewer veto power over when the citizenship process begins? Many immigration advocates argue the border is already secure, but Republicans continue to insist it isn’t, raising the question of whether this commission will ever acknowledge that border security has been achieved. And if this “commission” doesn’t ever decide the border is secure, couldn’t that result in 11 million people being stranded in second-class legal limbo?

That’s a legitimate worry, according to Frank Sharry, the executive director of America’s Voice, a group advocating for immigration reform...As Sharry put it, Democrats realize that they can’t “allow the commission to have a real veto” over setting in motion the path to citizenship. He noted that Dems see the commission as “something that gives the Republicans a talking point” to claim they are prioritizing tough enforcement...That said, Sharry concluded: “This is a left of center framework.” Indeed, the very fact that a path to citizenship for the 11 million is being discussed seriously by Republicans is alone a reminder of just how much the ground has shifted in this debate. This reflects just how much of a jolt the 2012 elections gave Republicans by bringing them face to face with the prospect of demographic doom.

* Rubio succeeds in weakening immigration reform push: The Post’s reporting suggests that Rubio held out for provisions that immigration advocates fear could ensure that undocumented immigrants might not become citizens for decades, as a price for his support. Rubio, of course, is a Tea Party darling, and this neatly illustrates that pursuing real immigration reform that could fix the GOP’s Latino problem, while trying to maintain your appeal to the GOP base, are fundamentally irreconcilable.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/01/28/the-morning-plum-the-ground-shifts-on-immigration/

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McCain's inclusion is also of interest, in large because it reflects a hard-to-execute flip-flop-flip -- McCain championed a comprehensive reform package in 2007, then announced his opposition to his own plan in 2008, and has now re-embraced the policies he rejected.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/01/28/16736295-bipartisan-group-of-senators-complete-immigration-reform-package

[geomon666]

1. Rubio is a snake in the grass

Floridians already know this.

[Tutonic]

2. Yeah but I think that Rubio will get targeted by the Tea Party

for his role in immigration reform. It is not goingto sit pretty wit hthe racist wing of hte Rethugs.

[ProSense]

3. He's really trying hard to position himself

for something. He's not only a snake, but also a twit: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022257640