A union representing hundreds of federal Citizenship and Immigration Services employees is concerned that House leaders will abandon the Republican-led chamber’s incremental approach toward illegal-immigration reform for the sweeping changes passed in the “extremely dangerous” Senate bill.
“I worry the House may be following a similar path,” Kenneth Palinkas, president of the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council, said recently.
Palinkas said the union’s major concerns are that House leaders might be trying to “advance proposals to open citizenship benefits to the majority of those here illegally, in combination with proposals to expand visa programs.”
He said the union also is concerned that House and Senate members will meet -- in what is known on Capitol Hill as “conference” -- to merge or “blend” the House bill “with the extremely dangerous Senate bill.”
Palinkas said the union is basing its concerns in part on media reports about Republican Reps. Paul Ryan, Wis.; Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Va.; Bob Goodlatte, Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez.
Goodlatte could not be reached for comment Sunday. However, his stated stance on immigration reform is that the system is “broken” and that the way for Congress to remedy the problem is to “methodically look at each of the various components that need to be fixed and take any final bill through the traditional legislative process.”
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