4:05 p.m. ET, March 17, 2021
The House will take up two immigration bills tomorrow as political tensions over border surge mount
From CNN's Annie Grayer
Samuel Corum/Bloomberg/Getty Images
As the
situation at the border continues to develop, back in Washington, House Democrats are looking to move forward with legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants,
a key pillar of President Biden's immigration plan.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced on a press call Tuesday that the House will officially be taking up two immigration bills on the floor this Thursday: The Dream & Promise Act and the Farmworker Workforce Modernization Act.
Hoyer admitted, “these two bills are not the fix, but they are fix to part of the problem.”
Hoyer vowed that the House will pass comprehensive immigration reform “in the coming months,” even as that path seems increasingly unlikely in the Senate especially in light of Senator Dick Durbin’s comments to CNN’s Manu Raju on Monday
saying he doesn't believe there's enough support in this Congress to pass a full-blown immigration bill with a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants.
“We need to pass comprehensive immigration reform and we are going to do so in the coming months,” Hoyer said.
Digging in deeper Hoyer later added, “we promised to our base that we were for comprehensive immigration reform. We are. We’re going to be working on that.”
“It is my expectation that we will bring as I said a comprehensive bill to the floor," he added.
Asked whether the situation at the border is affecting the debate on immigration, Hoyer pushed back by saying, “let’s be honest. The Republicans have for a long period of time used immigration as a political football to impart fear and apprehension in the minds of Americans.”
“Republicans demagogue this issue” Hoyer added, making clear that he thinks the GOP are leaning into this because “they believe it’s a political benefit for them.”
Hoyer said that there is consensus that the immigration system is broken, namely because there is not an effective path to citizenship, and argued that what’s happening at the border now “is an example of, the results of it being broken, and the Biden administration clearly recognizes there’s a challenge.”
Coming to the defense of the Biden administration’s handling of the growing crisis at the border, Hoyer added, “they have been in office now for what, 54 days or something like that. And they’re going to try to deal with the problem, but they want to fix the problem. Dealing with the problem in a way that demagogues the problem has not been helpful, is not helpful.”