Sen. Joe Manchin said he does not believe immigration reform will make it into the budget reconciliation bill, delivering a blow to immigration activists who had hoped Democrats would pass a pathway to citizenship without the help of Republicans.
'I don't think it's going to be in there. I really don't,' the West Virginia Democrat told Latino Rebels on Monday afternoon. 'I think it's too big for that.'
Manchin said he is 'totally committed' to the need for immigration reform but but he is unwilling to 'bust the Byrd Rule.'
Named for another West Virginia Democrat, Sen. Robert Byrd, prohibits 'extraneous' measures from being included in budget reconciliation bills, which can be passed by Democrats alone with a simple majority rather than needing 10 votes from Republicans.
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has issued two separate rulings barring a path to citizenship from being included in budget legislation.
The Democrats' plan would have given green cards to so-called 'Dreamers' who were brought to the US illegally as children, those with temporary protected status, agricultural workers and other essential workers.
In her first ruling, MacDonough, the Senate's nonpartisan rule interpreter, said that the proposed legalization program that would affect eight million immigrants 'is a policy change that substantially outweighs the budgetary impact of that change.'
She said the budgetary impact was secondary to the legislative impact.
'Changing the law to clear the way to LPR [lawful permanent resident] status is [a] tremendous and enduring policy change that dwarfs its budgetary impact,' she wrote.
Manchin said he is 'totally committed' to the need for immigration reform but but he is unwilling to 'bust the Byrd Rule'
Immigrants and Dreamers take part in a protest at the US Capitol pressuring Democrats to include a pathway to citizenship in their Build Back Better plan
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