INTERVIEW — MARK KRIKORIAN – a nationally recognized expert on immigration issues, has served as Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) @MarkSKrikorian

TOPIC: Immigration vote failed in Congress on Wednesday. What’s next and its impact on midterms

>> House rejects second Republican immigration bill… (The Hill) — The House rejected a Republican compromise bill on immigration Wednesday in a worse-than-expected 121-300 vote, effectively ending a months-long GOP drama that had put the conference’s internal politics on display. The measure won far fewer GOP votes than a more hard-line measure rejected last week in a 193-231 vote . Only 121 Republicans backed it, compared to 193 for the earlier measure. Two Republicans did not cast votes on Wednesday, while 112 Republicans voted against it.

> House Rejects Goodlatte-Ryan-Denham Amnesty Bill. (Numbers USA) — The House of Representatives firmly rejected H.R. 6136, the Goodlatte-Ryan-Denham Amnesty bill, today by a vote of 121-to-301. The bill received 72 fewer votes than H.R. 4760, the Securing America’s Future Act, which fell just 20 votes short of passage last week. H.R. 6136 would have given permanent amnesty to at least 1.8 million illegal aliens with only promises of future enforcement. While the legislation did appropriate nearly $25 billion for border security, the funding could have been rescinded by a future Congress or President. In the event that the funding was rescinded, illegal aliens would still keep their legal status, they would just lose their special path to citizenship. The bill also failed to fully satisfy Pres. Trump’s 4 immigration pillars by only ending some chain migration categories. The legislation would have left the parents category — the largest of the family chain categories — still in place. By leaving the category in place, illegal aliens who received the amnesty would be able to reward their parents with green cards once they became citizens. Key negotiators for the bill had filed an amendment earlier in the week that would have added mandatory E-Verify to the legislation. It would have also made significant reforms to the Ag guestworker program and expanded the H-2B low-skilled guestworker program. But House Leaders decided against holding a vote on the amendment.