Democrats blocked from including immigration in $3.5-trillion package

The Senate parliamentarian has blocked Democrats from including a plan to provide legal status to as many as 8 million undocumented immigrants in the package of legislation encompassing US President Joe Biden’s economic agenda.

Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough issued an opinion Sunday that the broad and long-stalled immigration overhaul doesn’t qualify for inclusion in a massive tax and spending plan under the Senate rules that Democrats are using to bypass a Republican filibuster. The parliamentarian said the proposal by Democrats is a policy change that “substantially outweighs” the budgetary impact of that change, effectively finding it out of bounds under Senate rules. “It is by any standard a broad, new immigration policy,” MacDonough wrote.

The Senate Democrats’ plan would have granted status to undocumented immigrants including young “Dream­ers,” migrant farm workers, some immigrants deemed “essential workers” and others with temporary protected status. 

The parliamentarian’s decision means that the immigration proposal would require 60 votes rather than the simple majority allowed for the fast-track procedure known as reconciliation. The Senate is split 50-50 between the two parties, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to break ties, and the broad GOP opposition to the immigration overhaul would doom it.