Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D) and Sen. Rand Paul (R), in separate forums Tuesday, struck common ground on some of the thorniest issues surrounding immigration reform. Is a bipartisan deal close?
Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, D-Ill., speaks on Capitol Hill, last Wednesday during a mock hearing on immigration reform following a national bus tour.
Susan Walsh/AP
EnlargeIn the immigration reform debate now under way in Washington, Democrats and Republicans are taking a steady march in one direction: toward one another.
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On Tuesday morning, a leading Democratic advocate of immigration reform said his party would not require a special path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, in keeping with a key Republican demand.
At nearly the same moment some two blocks away, a 2016 Republican presidential contender and tea party favorite embraced legal status and?potential citizenship for the nation?s 12 million undocumented people, which have been Democratic desires for more than a decade.
That's not to say the immigration reform debate is over ? far from it.
But when Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D) of Illinois, a Chicago progressive who got himself arrested outside the White House [last year?] protesting Arizona?s tough immigration law, and Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky, a heartthrob of the conservative activist set and heir to the Paul family libertarian fame, stake out common ground on immigration reform??That?s saying something.
Senator Paul joined a list of [a handful of? a dozen?] GOP immigration reformers who say they?re willing to provide a pathway to legal status for 12 million illegal immigrants, provided it's paired with enhanced border security and no unique path to American citizenship.
The response from Representative Gutierrez, a key House negotiator on the issue???I?m willing to take yes for an answer,? he said.
Gutierrez, who crafted ill-fated bipartisan legislation on immigration reform during the tenure of President George W. Bush, tucked into questions from reporters at a Monitor breakfast just down the street from where Senator Paul at the same time launched into the immigration reform debate during a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
Their similarities are what spoke loudest.
Paul says his plan brings the undocumented ?out of the shadows, lets them normalize their existence, it lets them become [taxpayers]."
"If they want to become citizens," he said on a conference call after his speech, "I?m open to debate as to what we do to move forward. I think the way that moves forward is they get in line like everybody else. Exactly how that works, and the logistics of all this, is still open to how we move it forward.?
What some Republicans fear is that this will be ?exactly how that works?: Democrats will lead Republicans to the edge of "amnesty" (as anti-immigration partisans call it) before opting to deep-six a compromise bill, blame the GOP for failure to produce legislation, and rally Hispanic voters, who helped to shellack Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, to their side.?
?Even if you came up with a decent immigration bill,? says former GOP Rep. Steve LaTourette of Ohio, who retired in 2010, ?my fear would be that in that instance somebody over in the Democratic caucus would try to out-Hispanic the Hispanics.?
Gutierrez, who two decades ago became the first Latino elected to Congress from Illinois, could be Suspect A in doing just that. His fiery demeanor and long attention to immigration reform have helped him to build deep ties and respect in the immigration advocacy community.
But Gutierrez said on Tuesday that?s simply not what Democrats want to happen. Democrats and Republicans are almost in synch on the first portion: Both want a pathway to legal status for as long as a decade before anyone in the US illegally would be able to become a citizen.?But he also went a step further, saying Democrats won?t insist on a "special pathway to citizenship? for the undocumented, a request that has been a rallying cry of liberal advocates.
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