Immigration reform will move ahead even if Republicans try to stop it, Menendez says

Joe Biden

President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the Oval Office of the White House on April 20, 2021.AP

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez once helped write a bipartisan immigration bill supported by more than two-thirds of the Senate. But if Republicans won’t join him this time, he said Democrats will try to pass it themselves under a special parliamentary procedure.

Emerging from a meeting at the White House with President Joe Biden and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Menendez told NJ Advance Media that proponents of overhauling immigration laws would consider using what is known as reconciliation to pass the bill by a simple majority rather than the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

That’s how Congress passed Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill after every Republican opposed it.

“I specifically urged the president to lean in on the question of getting some significant reform done in the Senate, if necessary through reconciliation,” the New Jersey Democrat said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that Biden was focused on trying to get support from both parties on immigration.

“Right now, the conversation should not be about a reconciliation process, it should be about moving forward in a bipartisan manner,” she said at her daily press briefing.

A member of the so-called “Gang of Eight” in 2013, Menendez saw the bipartisan effort get 68 votes in the Senate, more than enough to overcome a filibuster. But House Republican leaders refused to allow a vote in their chamber.

Menendez this year is the lead sponsor of Biden’s immigration legislation that would provide paths to citizenship for an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants, including those brought to the U.S. as children, as well as farmworkers and those with temporary protected status because of upheaval in their homelands.

The legislation also would use technology to control border crossings, and would send billions of dollars to Central American countries so that residents living there won’t feel the need to come to the U.S.

In talks with Republicans, including those who voted for the 2013 measure, Menendez said there was little enthusiasm for a broad overhaul of immigration laws but rather narrowly focused provisions for farmworkers and the so-called dreamers, those brought to the U.S. as children.

“That is not sufficient reform,” Menendez said “It shows how far they’ve come from where they once were to where they are. This is the Donald Trump phenomenon.”

Menendez said the immigration bill should be eligible for reconciliation because it would have such a huge impact on the budget, boosting the U.S. economy, adding millions of jobs, and reducing the

“Those are powerful economic issues,” he said.



The current surge of children crossing into the U.S. from Central American countries, hoping to reunite with relatives already in the country, is straining American resources and giving Republicans an issue to hammer Biden.

While Americans in the latest Quinnipiac University poll supported Biden’s response to the coronavirus by 64% to 29% and the way he was dealing with the economy by 50% to 42%, only 29% approved of his handling of the situation at the Mexican border with 55% disapproving.

“It makes it more complicated because Republicans have done a good job of their messaging and fixating everything at the border,” he said.

But Menendez said the surge, which he blamed on former President Donald Trump’s efforts to restrict immigration, actually is another argument for passing comprehensive legislation.

“What’s happening at the border is a further catalyst for reform,” Menendez said. “When you don’t have a system that works, then you have a pressure of people who have choices to make. If their choice is to stay and die and see their daughter raped or son put into a gang, they’re going to come north.”

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Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @JDSalant.

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