A key Republican lawmaker has abandoned the bipartisan attempt to write an immigration bill in the House citing concern about rising health care costs. The departure of Rep. Paul Labrador, R-Idaho, has given advocates of the immigration bill cause for concern as the Senate version of the bill is scheduled to come up for a vote to proceed to full debate on Monday, according to USA Today.
Up until this point the majority of conflict over the bill has been concerning the 11 million illegal aliens already inside of the U.S. and whether or not they should be allowed to seek full citizenship. Labrador abandoned a House group that had been working for four years in order to draft a suitable immigration bill because no compromise could be reached on the issue of how to pay for health care costs for people on the pathway to citizenship, sources told USA Today.
"I really hoped that Labrador would stay in the room and keep pushing for a reasonable compromise," Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, told USA Today. "We knew this was only going to get harder. And it's clear that the debate is going to come down to border and benefits."
Opponents of the legislation are seeking ways to limit the costs associated with the bills. Suggestions have included limiting unauthorized immigrant's access to welfare programs, bar them from Obamacare and making them pay more in back taxes, USA Today reports.
Once the bill comes up for debate in the Senate the already 1,000 page piece of legislation is expected to receive a myriad of amendments. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, plans to attach four amendments to the bill with the goal of easing the bill's financial burden.
"Let me make this point as clearly as I can - if these four issues are not addressed in a reasonable manner on the floor, I will vote against the bill," Hatch said during debate by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.
The bill currently requires potential citizens to pay all back taxes that they have accrued while in the U.S. This raises an issue since much of the work performed by illegal immigrants is done "off the books" and the IRS has no record of it. One of the amendments proposed by Hatch will require that the IRS go back and figure out how much money potential citizens owe in back taxes, which may be a near impossible task to accomplish, according to USA Today.
"Conceptually, I'm there," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said about the amendment. "Everybody should pay back taxes, illegal immigrants included. Byt how do you implement it? Is it workable? It may not be."
If the bill were to become law immigrants would go through a ten year period of temporary legal status where they would be able to obtain some benefits. For example, children would be able to attend public school. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., wants to limit those benefits as much as possible, according to the Associated Press.
"This would grant such benefits to millions and be a substantial burden on our country's finances at a time we're desperately trying to reduce our deficit," Sessions said while debating the bill.
