Get Ready to Watch This Lame-Duck Congress Sprint
Judging by what we’ve seen so far, the “zombie Congress” that returned to town this week (the reelected and the not-so-lucky) will do more business in the weeks following the election than it did in many months preceding.
Consider these trains — all long-sidetracked, all suddenly leaving the station on Capitol Hill:
Immigration: The hot-button issue of the post-election session is the president’s promise to change federal immigration practices by executive order. Republicans in the main oppose the expected changes, many strenuously. And all are incensed at the president’s plan to do it unilaterally — calling it “executive amnesty” for lawbreakers.
Nonetheless, after waiting nearly two years for the House to take up the issue, the White House has leaked an outline of its own plan, including work permits for parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents. That could give more than 3 million currently undocumented residents the legal standing to stay. There would also be deferments for another million immigrants now facing deportation, and new standing for hundreds of thousands of migrant farm workers lacking legal status.
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