Senate Parliamentarian Blocks Immigration Reform from Democrats’ Spending Bill for Third Time

U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the McAllen station encounter large group after large group of family units in Los Ebanos, Texas, on Friday June 15. This group well in excess of 100 family units turned themselves into the U.S. Border Patrol, after crossing the border illegally and walking through the town of Los Ebanos.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rejected another Democratic effort to include immigration reform in President Joe Biden’s spending bill.

MacDonough’s ruling, which came late Thursday, is Democrats’ latest setback in their bid to overhaul the nation’s immigration system via the reconciliation bill. She rejected two bids earlier this year to include a pathway to citizenship in the package, ruling that the provisions did not meet the criteria to be included in the filibuster-proof legislation.

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Senate Parliamentarian Blocks Pathway to Citizenship from Democrats’ Budget

Capitol building

The Senate Parliamentarian blocked Democrats’ effort to include a pathway to citizenship in their $3.5 trillion spending package Sunday, a major setback in the party’s bid to reform the nation’s immigration system.

Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough wrote in her decision that Democrats’ proposed legislation is “by any standard a broad, new immigration policy,” adding that it “substantially outweighs the budgetary impact of that change.”

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