The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which must review the bipartisan immigration reform bill being crafted by the "Gang of Eight," said on Wednesday that a mid-April deadline the senators had hoped to meet will pass without a compromise.
"This process will take time. It will not be easy. There will be strongly-held, differing points of view. Because we do not yet have legislative language to debate, the Senate Judiciary Committee will not be able to report a comprehensive immigration bill by the end of April, which was my goal," Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said.
This does not mean the process has been derailed, only that it is taking longer than proponents had hoped.
"This is a complicated issue that needs to be done the right way. There are some items that are still outstanding and that we need to work through. Assuming we can get those worked out, the answer is yes. But it has to be done the right way," Marco Rubio, a Republican member of the bipartisan team, said.
Leahy has been urging speed, and many politicians on both sides believe the longer it takes to vote on a bill, the less likely conservatives will be to support it. Republicans are still reeling from their loss in last year's presidential election, when 71 percent of Latinos voted for their opponent, President Obama, making current sentiment in Congress the friendliest it has been to the subject of immigration reform in decades.
In addition, Obama has a more progressive proposal waiting in the wings, as Leahy has said he will move ahead with the president's plan if the Senate cannot come up with a compromise measure soon.
That may end up happening, since on Tuesday, six Republican senators told Leahy they think the process is moving too quickly.
The won't be able to slow the Gang of Eight, but any measure that is actually produced will face an uphill battle winning approval.
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