I just wanted to get back to you regarding your question about when the
SKIL bill might be voted on in the House and Senate. The short answer is
that we do not know exactly this might come up, but I can layout some
possible senarios.
First of all, for any legislation addressing any aspect of immigration
to move forward, there must be some agreement between the House and
Senate to move forward to conference on the bills that have been passed
already, S. 2611 on the Senate side (which contains all the provisions
of the SKIL Bill, so in essence the Senate has passed the SKIL bill,
just not as a stand alone meaure) and HR 4437 on the House side.
Clearly, the House Republican leaders are opposed to the letting the
Senate's bill to go to conference and there is similar disdain among a
bi-partisan majority of the Senate to move any enforcement only measure
forward - thus the stalemate in going to conference. It has also been
recently reported in that Sen. Frist is not likely to schedule floor
time for any immigration measure before the elections, leading me to
believe that unless there is some sort of breakthrough in September
(which could happen, in which case a lot of frenetic work will be done
in a very short amount of time to get some sort of conference report
together) there will be no bill until the post election lame duck
Congress at best.
So while the recent introduction of the House SKIL bill is an important
step forward on this issue, it's fate at this point seems tied to the
larger immigration reform debate. If there was some sort of
breakthrough in September, I think SKIL would have a good shot at being
part of that deal, but at this point I don't see the signs of anything
happening in Sept.
No matter how the Senate and House proceed on any immigration reform
measure from this point forward, both bodies will still need to have a
conference and pass a reconciled version of that measure.