Amnesty Immigration reform's No. 1 enemy: Time

Immigration reform [amnesty for illegal alien] advocates have a new enemy: the congressional calendar.

Fall’s fiscal fights have lined up in a way that could delay immigration reform [amnesty] until 2014, multiple senior House Republican leadership aides tell POLITICO, imperiling the effort’s prospects before the midterm elections.

The mid-October debt ceiling deadline — an earlier-than-expected target laid out Monday by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew — is changing the House GOP leadership’s plans to pass immigration [amnesty] bills that month..

That’s not the only scheduling challenge. There are fewer than 40 congressional working days until the end of 2013 — the unofficial deadline for passing immigration reform — and they’ll present some of the most politically challenging votes for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. It will be difficult to add immigration reform to the list, senior aides say.

Government funding runs dry on Sept. 30. The nine days the House is in session that month will be crowded with the debate over the continuing resolution to keep the government operating. The GOP leadership will have to reconcile the screams [thoughtful objections] from conservatives who want to use the bill to defund Obamacare with their own desire to avoid a government shutdown. Of course, anything the House approves would need to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, which will ignore attempts to weaken the law.

Immigration reform [amnesty] isn’t certain to die if it slips into 2014, some in GOP leadership say. But major progress must be made in 2013 as it would be too difficult for the House to chart a course in 2014, an election year...

CAIRCO Notes:

One must wonder why the suicidal GOP leadership would push for an amnesty for illegal aliens who overwhelmingly vote Democratic. The answer must certainly be to provide cheap foreign job seekers for their corporate support base. No matter how strongly the American people oppose it.