No Immigration Reform in 2013

John Boehner says immigration reform is officially dead for 2013. It will be tough to get done in 2014 because of primary season (where Republicans will throw red meat to their core constituencies, which oppose immigration reform) then midterm elections. Add the fact that Republicans already caved once to President Obama on the shutdown and now trust him even less than before--if such a thing is possible--because of the disaster of the Affordable Care Act rollout. The argument in favor boils down to a long-term vision for the party that by necessity must ignore short-term constituency realities in many districts.

What I expect now are a bunch of piecemeal bills that will try to deal with narrow aspects of immigration, thus not angering the base while trying to show Latinos that the party is not as anti-immigrant as it often seems. I also expect that they will not solve much for the vast majority of non-citizens in the country. I expect that this will provide fuel for state arguments that they must legislate more because of Congress' failure.

"This is about trying to do this in a way that the American people and our members can absorb," Boehner said, adding immigration reform is too complicated to rush.

Put more simply, reality is what has to be absorbed, and for many people it is not easy.