Schumer Readies Plan B to Push Immigration Changes Unilaterally

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

Schumer Readies Plan B to Push Immigration Changes Unilaterally

Should bipartisan talks stall, the Senate majority leader is exploring trying to use budget reconciliation to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants.

By Luke Broadwater
May 3, 2021
Updated 7:34 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, is quietly considering trying to use a fast-track budget maneuver to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants should bipartisan talks on providing a pathway to citizenship fall apart.

Mr. Schumer has privately told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in recent weeks that he is “actively exploring” whether it would be possible to attach a broad revision of immigration laws to President Biden’s infrastructure plan and pass it through a process known as budget reconciliation, according to two people briefed on his comments.

The move would allow the measures to pass the evenly divided Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes, shielding them from a filibuster and the 60-vote threshold for moving past one, which would otherwise require at least 10 Republican votes.

The strategy is part of a backup plan Mr. Schumer has lined up in the event that talks among 15 senators in both parties fail to yield a compromise. As the negotiations drag on with little agreement in sight, proponents are growing increasingly worried that Democrats may squander a rare opportunity to legalize broad swaths of the undocumented population while their party controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/us/politics/immigration-infrastructure-budget-reconciliation.html

[Deuxcents]

1. My question

As Majority Leader, what has happened to all the bills passed by the House n sent to the Senate before he became Leader?Do they have to be resubmitted n voted upon again or can Schumer put them forward? Just seems like a slow process..

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

2. Any bills passed before this session need to be repassed by the House

All bills die at the end of the session.

[Eugene]

3. Bills from the 116th Congress are being resubmitted.

Everything from January 3, when the 117th Congress started, and January 20, when Schumer became majority leader, is still active.