A senior US republican party representative, John Boehner, who is the speaker of the House of Representatives has blamed President Obama for the delay in immigration reform. He has stated that Republicans in the House of Representatives do not trust the President and this is the main and primary reason for not being able to push through reform regarding immigration. More specifically, Mr. Boehner, mentioned or indicated that lax enforcement by the president of any such laws when brought forth, is the primary reason for their reluctance in moving forward with the bills in regard to immigration.
But, actually, it was only Republicans and among them the senior House Republicans, including Boehner himself and also former vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, who had brought out and publicized a short document entitled ‘Standards for Immigration Reform’. In that document, the authors of the report had outlined and elaborated upon some principles related to immigration reform which they hoped would be acceptable to all (or, a majority of) the Republicans. The background to or the motive for bringing out the document is that both the parties – Republican and democratic – agree that the immigration system is broken and that it needs to be fixed. But, there is disagreement about where it is broken and about how to go about fixing it.
But, in general, the document outlined proposals which would in effect allow for more employment-based immigration, and also importantly/controversially allow many of the approximately 11.5 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the US to seek and apply for some sort of ‘legal residential’ status. But, at the same time, the document stopped short of providing for full legality or citizenship to them. The document had stated that any special concession to those currently residing illegal migrants would be ‘unfair’ to those individuals who had arrived in the US legally, were residing legally and who were abiding by the legal rules and seeking residency or citizenship status legally. This was the basic rationale and logic outlined in that document’s vision, schemes, etc. But, further to that document’s formal release, it has been reported that some key Republicans including even Boehner have stated that the problem lies with the President Obama and not with them.
But, actually, some observers are now opining that this is actually a matter in which differences have arisen between Republicans themselves and that the opposition to the pro-immigration proposition is coming from within the Republican party itself and from some conservative members among them. And that, Boehner is actually mistaken and wrong in criticizing the President for not acting on the proposition pertaining to reforms in immigration. So, for the present, atleast, ‘immigration reform’ is stalled no matter who is responsible for the logjam/delay.
