Boehner: 'Difficult' to move on immigration reform in 2014

César Oscar Cano Gutiérrez

Sociedad y política de Estados Unidos de Norteamérica

6 de febrero de 2014

The article “Boehner: ‘Difficult’ to move on immigration reform in 2014” from the Washington Post, describes the difficulties that exist on the lawmaking process, especially in laws related with the immigration topic. In this article is shown what House Speaker John Andrew Boehner has said about the immigration reform. Boehner had appeared to be pushing for this reform to occur sometime on this year, but now he has stated “there’s widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws. And it’s going to be difficult to move any immigration legislation until that changes,” because of this year’s midterms elections. And also, Boehner says that this applies to the ongoing debt-ceiling negotiations.

            On this article is stated the situation, where some people, like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, think that “it would be impossible for the House and Senate to strike a deal that could pass both chambers” on this year. But on the other side, some Republicans believe that “if Boehner aggressively pursues immigration reform in 2014, it could spell doom for House Republicans who face contentious races in this year’s midterms.” Both opinions shows the effects of elections on lawmaking process, because of the distrust on that if the reform will be implemented as they were intended to be, and also, because of the interests behind the candidates.

            Finally, this article shows some jokes made by Boehner about Republicans’ position on these topics, saying that Republicans will be against any kind of motion introduced by the Congress.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/02/06/boehner-difficult-to-move-on-immigration-reform-in-2014/

I agree with Boehner’s statements because of this year’s midterms elections, candidates are more cautious with the decisions they make so they don’t get a bad reputation, also because the intention of the Republicans to place obstacles on Democrats’ way to make them lose voter’s support on elections. But I think that the jokes were “a bit too much” because those jokes might be considered some kind of offense or aggressive behavior against Republicans, and that might make them, the Democrats, lose support. I mean, I think those jokes were funny, but they were out of order.

In conclusion, I think that this is an important matter to the US Government because the result of the actions made by the chambers will change the course of the US society, especially the immigration reform because it will change the importance and the role played by the immigrants on the US economy, politics and society. I think that the US Government is dealing with a difficult situation between the Congress and the Senate because of the distrust from both parties, and this distrust is magnified by this year’s midterm elections, so this scenario will prevent that reforms or new laws to be accepted by the chambers, at least on this year. So it might be more prudent or wiser to wait until the elections are over to start the negotiations between the Republicans’ and Democrats’ representatives to approve any kind of reform or new law.