Beltway Happenings
May 17, 2006--Armando Morales of Casa de Maryland leads chants at an immigrant rights mass rally and march on the National Mall.  Earlier activists lobbied on Capitol Hill.  This rally drew a much smaller crowd than the April 10 rally.  

At this point, it appears increasingly possible that an immigration reform bill might pass this year.  On May 15, President Bush addressed immigration in a nationally televised address from the Oval Office in which he set out five objectives: the United States must secure its borders; we must create a temporary worker program; we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire; we must deal with the millions of illegal immigrants whe are already here; and we must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot.  (source: White House fact sheet).  Bush called on the Senate to act by the end of the month.  Also on May 15 the Senate re-engaged the immigration debate, taking up S. 2611, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (this is the Hagel-Martinez compromise which amends the Judiciary Committee bill).  By the 17th, Senators were hard at work considering numerous amendments to the bill.  Even if the Senate does pass a bill, there will still be a difficult negotiations in conference with the House, which passed a much more severe bill.

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Copyright © 2006  Eric M. Appleman/Democracy in Action

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