It may still be three years away, but some American Senators believe the ongoing immigration reform debate could decide the outcome of the next US Election.
One of the Republican Senators who helped create the first draft of the legislation currently being debated in the Senate believes that their party will stand no chance of being elected in 2016 if they choose to sabotage the bill’s progress.
Senator Lindsey Graham went on record on Sunday to state that those who choose to block the bill will be terminally harming the party’s future.
“After eight years of President Obama’s economic policies, and quite frankly foreign policy, people are going to be looking around,” Graham told NBC’s Meet the Press programme. “But if we don’t pass immigration reform, if we don’t get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn’t matter who you run in 2016. We’re in a demographic death spiral as a party and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community in my view is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don’t do that, it really doesn’t matter who we run.”
Meanwhile Senator Marco Rubio, tipped by many to be the Republican’s 2016 Presidential candidate is still refusing to fully back the legislation, believing that fellow party members were right to have some “valid” concerns about the legislation as far as border security is concerned.
“The vast majority of Americans, the vast majority of conservative Republicans, are prepared to support immigration reform, but only if we can ensure that we’re not going to have another wave of illegal immigration in the future,” he said. “”I think 95, 96 percent of the bill is in perfect shape and ready to go. But there are elements that need to be improved.”
There are sure to be more twists and turns on the road to US immigration reform in the weeks to come.