We have had an interesting last 10 days or so primarily coming out of Washington DC for US Immigration.

US Senate Approval 68-32

Firstly the US Senate, suspended their usually dithering and lack of a work ethic to actually debate, vote and amazingly pass a piece of legislation. What is more it is for comprehensive immigration reform which is a net positive for the US and actually addresses a lot of what is wrong with the current immigration system.

The fact that this measure passed 68-32 meaning there was a lot of bi-partisan support for the bill suggests for the first time in a while the country, or at least some of its elected officials, can come together to make an adult decision. The reality is for Democratic Senators their major focus on the illegal immigrant side of this reform and to a lesser extent appeasing the tech industry who is a big portion of their donor bases and for the Republican Senators a thought to address their growing irrelevance with the rising Hispanic voting bloc and spend evermore money on a border fence is the true selfish reasons these Senators supported this bill. However at the end of the day we are all operating in a quid pro quo way in our daily lives so can’t expect better from our elected officials and at least in this case the outcome is potentially positive.

However this is not the the end of the battle for US Immigration Reform as it now travels to the House of Representatives before it gets to President Obama to be signed into law. The Republican Majority House with a vocal minority adamantly disagreeing with portions of the bill related to pathways to citizenship for illegal immigrants, lack of further efforts in border security and some also wanting stricter caps on visa like the H-1B visa rather than increases means that the bill has a long way to go.

Additionally people from Speaker John Boehner to other major figures have said even if it gets done it prob will take till the end of the year. More likely if US Immigration reform has a chance of passing a milder version of the bill will pass the House and it will go into a conference session with the US Senate to have a compromised bill go the White House for signature. So maybe right now we can say we are 40% there..which is prob 39% closer than we have been to Immigration reform in 30 years.

Cj