What was starting out as a strong road in favor of immigration reform has now started to deteriorate into lines in the sand being drawn on the issue, with conservative Republicans on one side and pro-immigration advocates on the other.
While more Republicans have come forward in recent months in favor of immigration reform, Republicans in the House of Representatives appear to be slower to come around on the issue.
According to the Washington Post, U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the chairman of the Houst Judiciary Committee who has voiced his opposition to creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, said that plans were already underway to delay or stop the bill.
Rep. Goodlatte stated that his committee would be open to a series of smaller bills instead of a large comprehensive immigration reform bill. However, that is a scenario which President Obama has implied in the past that he would not accept.
Accepting smaller bills would likely kill off any chance of providing a pathway to citizenship to immigrants living illegally in the U.S. or any chance of extending a legal status to them.
However, the GOP's feet have been put to the fire in recent months after a record number of Latino voters cast their ballots in favor of President Obama in the November presidential elections. And in recent months afterward, several polls of U.S. citizens show that more Americans are in favor of granting legal status to immigrants.
Prominent GOP members such as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a key member on the bipartisan senate panel that put forward the immigration proposal, and former vice presidential candidate Sen. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., have stepped forward to support the bill, even in the face of criticism from conservative talk radio shows and conservative pundits such as Ann Coulter.
"We need it for national security reasons. We need it for the economy," Mr. Ryan said. "We do not want to have a society where we have different classes of people who cannot reach their American dream by not being a full citizen."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the coin, pro-immigration activists are starting to mobilize in order to make their voices heard on their desires to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
With May Day, the annual nationwide protest for immigrants calling for immigration reform, coming up soon, activists in Los Angeles and San Bernardino are looking to get higher turnouts than ever before.
"We're doing phone calls, postcards (in support of immigration reform) - that's just as important but so is coming out on the streets," Xiomara Corpeno of The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, one of dozens of groups sponsoring the L.A. march, told the Los Angeles Daily News. "That's important ... to demonstrate that there are unified voices that are willing to come out and support immigration reform. No. 2. Also to demonstrate to the community that there is support for them so people will be less afraid, step outside of the shadows. "
The push for immigration reform is also being felt in Chicago, home of a very large Latino population. At several churches in Chicago, pastors are joining their Latino congregations as they prepare for a downtown Chicago immigration rally on Wednesday.
To just express our desire that the Congress pass legislation that is humane and dignified and that represents so many wonderful families and communities across the country," Father Brendan Curran of St Pius V Church in Pilsen said, as reported by WGN TV in Chicago.
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