This is what happened every time Congress has tried to pass immigration reform

By Suzanne Gamboa -

President Joe Biden's visit to the border this Sunday occurs when immigration laws have become obsolete and any hint of progress seems unlikely given the lack of consensus between Democrats and Republicans.

The inability of Congress to pass meaningful immigration reform has dragged on for more than two decades.

Time and again, attempts have failed, including bipartisan efforts and those with strong presidential backing.

Instead, most immigration changes have been accomplished solely through funding bills, small provisions in other measures, regulations, and executive authority.

Migrants at the border with Mexico in El Paso, Texas, keep warm, on December 22, 2022. John Moore / Getty Images

These are the failures of Congress on immigration since Democratic President Bill Clinton left office in January 2001.

2001

President George W. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox, friends since the Republican's days as Texas governor, held high-level talks on a comprehensive immigration reform plan, which they hoped would create a guest worker program and allow legalize some 8.5 million people who were then living undocumented in the United States.

Both made the issue a top priority: Bush chose Mexico as his first trip abroad and Fox attended Bush's first state dinner.

But everything fell apart a few days after said dinner, when the attacks of September 11, 2001 changed the priorities of the US government, causing a radical change in its immigration policy.

Ciudad Juárez shields itself to contain the flow of migrants to the US

Jan 8, 202302:03

2005

Senators John McCain, R-Arizona, and Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, wrote the Orderly Immigration and Secure America Act, better known as the McCain-Kennedy Act.

It would have provided six-year work visas to people who were in the country irregularly and the chance to become legal residents after paying fines and passing the background check process.

The bill would have created an "essential worker visa" so that every year 400,000 could be hired in the United States, as well as a path to legal residency.

It was never voted on in the Senate.

2005-06

House Republicans wrote a purely enforcement bill, also known as the Sensenbrenner bill, after its main author, former Congressman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin.

The bill included tougher penalties for irregular immigration and would have classified people in the United States illegally and anyone who helped them as criminals.

It also called for the construction of hundreds of miles of fencing along the US-Mexico border.

These harsh provisions sparked massive protests across the country, especially from Latinos.

The bill passed the House of Representatives, while the Senate passed the Comprehensive Reform Act of 2006, backed by the Bush White House.

There are a few days left until the new app for asylum seekers is activated

Jan 8, 202300:32

2007

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat, pushed through a compromise bill that included a pathway to citizenship, visas for highly-skilled workers, and funding for more border barriers, technology, and border agents. .

The bill had the bipartisan support of Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, among others, and had the strong backing of Bush.

However, it was not voted on in the Senate.

2013

With Democratic President Barack Obama in the White House, a bipartisan group of senators negotiated an immigration reform bill that passed the Senate.

It included a pathway to legalization and ultimately citizenship, and set out “goals” such as putting up 700 miles of border fencing and putting in place an employment verification system before people in the country illegally may apply for legalization.

It would also have added up to 40,000 Border Patrol agents.

Another eight-member bipartisan group was working on a bill in the House of Representatives, but disbanded without ever introducing a bill.

House Speaker John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, announced that there would be no move on immigration.

Biden announces permits for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.

But they must request asylum from their country

Jan 5, 202304:33

And what will happen in 2023?

In the recently launched legislature, the Republicans control the House of Representatives and the Democrats the Senate, but both with little margin.

The Lower House stagnated in the first week of operation of the new Congress, since a block of ultra-conservative members stopped the election of the Republican leader, the Californian Kevin McCarthy, as the new

, who has already clarified that no bill will reach the plenary session of amnesty for migrants.

Before the infighting, the massive arrival of migrants at the border seeking asylum and the 2024 presidential elections, the prospects of making progress on this issue are slim, said Michelle Mittelstadt, spokesperson for the Migration Policy Institute.