(WJBC file photo)
By John Gregory/Illinois Radio Network
CHICAGO – Dead on arrival may be the best description for legislation passed by the U.S. House rolling back immigration reforms ordered by the president.
Those provisions were included in the Department of Homeland Security funding bill, which passed the House with zero votes to spare. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) promises he’ll speak out against the bill when it comes to the Senate floor.
“We are not going down without a fight,” Durbin said. “We are going to stop these hateful, negative positions from the Republicans in the House of Representatives, and we are going to say, again, as other generations have throughout this nation’s history, we are a nation of immigrants.”
The Republican move not only seeks to block the president’s order from last year to defer deportations of millions of undocumented immigrants, it reaches back further. The bill would also halt the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides work permits to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
Two Illinois Republicans voted against the amendment-U.S. Reps. Robert Dold (R-Kenilworth) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Channahon).
