The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated on Tuesday that passage of the Senate’s comprehensive immigration bill, known as S.744, would decrease federal budget deficits by $197 billion over a ten year period between 2014 to 2023. It also estimates that 8 million undocumented immigrants would be legalized.

Between 2024 and 2033, the CBO estimates that the federal budget deficits would be cut by $700 billion.

The CBO’s estimate blasts the conservative argument that immigration reform is costly out of the water. The report contradicts the $6 trillion cost estimate used by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, who as far back as 2007 have been successful in helping to derail immigration reform efforts.

But these numbers will be harder to push now that the CBO has weighed in. Many Republican senators have praised the CBO. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who is adamantly opposed to the legislation, has said that the CBO is “like God.”

Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-TX)

Marchant represents Dallas, Texas, where there are estimated to be thousands of undocumented people residing. His district is 24 percent Hispanic. Yet, he was quite straightforward when explaining that these numbers worked against him, and informed his opposition to reform:

“It’s hard to argue with the polling they’ve been getting from the national level,” said Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, referring to signs of serious problems for Republican presidential candidates if immigration laws aren’t rewritten. “I just don’t experience it locally.”

The proposed immigration overhaul “is very unpopular in my district,” said Marchant, who represents suburbs west of Dallas. “The Republican primary voters, they’re being pretty vocal with me on this subject.” Besides, he said, “if you give the legal right to vote to 10 Hispanics in my district, seven to eight of them are going to vote Democrat.”

Marchant’s website explains that the Congressman “is strongly opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens because amnesty rewards those who choose to break our nation’s laws, and only serves to encourage and incentivize the flood of illegal immigration plaguing our nation today.” But his comments make it clear that he isn’t just in it for the morality play.

Of course, Marchant is not alone; the article also references several other members of Congress who oppose reform for self-serving reasons. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said that getting to a bipartisan agreement on immigration reform “can cause you a big problem in your primary” because it requires getting “a deal with a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president.” Meanwhile, Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) said flat-out, “Every member in the House is looking at the immigration debate through a prism of what’s of concern in their district.”

Of the 232 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, only 40 Congressmen represent districts with a Hispanic population at or larger than 20 percent, and only 16 have districts that are more than a third Hispanic. “In all,” Nate Silver writes, “84 percent of House Republicans represent districts that are 20 percent or less Hispanic.” This gives little electoral bargaining power to the communities that would be most affected by a change in immigration policy.

In a move that is sure to cause controversy and confusion among Republican members of Congress, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is considering introducing two gun-related amendments to the Senate’s immigration bill.

One of the amendments would bar any immigrant on a visa waiver from purchasing a firearm. The other would “require the US attorney general to alert the Department of Homeland Security when undocumented immigrants attempt to buy guns or when non-citizens attempt mass gun purchases,” according to Mother Jones.

This poses a conundrum: Many in the Republican caucus have pushed the idea that undocumented people are “criminals.” A House immigration bill would even put everyone applying to join the pathway to citizenship on probation. From that logic, it follows that those Republicans — who have repeatedly expressed in the gun debate that “government should focus on keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals” — would consider selling mass amounts of guns to people who “broke the law” as something worth tracking by the government.

But at the same time, congressional Republicans have been remarkably resistant to any laws that would expand tracking of gun purchases or checking the legal purchasing status of gun buyers, warning that such efforts could lead to a “gun registry.” Thanks to pressure from the National Rifle Association, some elected officials have voted against the opinions of a huge majority in their states to oppose expanding any gun laws.

Sen. Blumenthal’s amendments have already hit some resistance. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the measures were “problematic” because they would “open up the flood gates.” But if senators choose to block these amendment while backing another that would deny legalized immigrants access to health care, they will show where their priorities lie.

Credit: ABC News

The poll, conducted by the Partnership for a New American Economy, the Alliance for Citizenship, and Republicans for Immigration Reform, found that an average of 68 percent of voters support the bill. Some key states highlighted were Florida, South Carolina, and Texas.

In Florida, where some 825,000 undocumented immigrants reside, 72 percent of voters said they support the legislation and 45 percent strongly support it. In South Carolina, a state with 55,000 undocumented immigrants, 62 percent support the Gang of Eight bill. And in Texas, which has the highest ratio of undocumented immigrants of the three at 1.65 million, 67 percent said they could support the reform bill as described and 72 percent backed a pathway to citizenship.

Notably, some of the states with the highest support for the bill are represented by senators who voted not to even begin debate on it, including, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Mike Kirk (R-IL).

The legislation is due for another vote before July 4th and will then head to the House, where House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has said he believes it will pass by the end of the year.

Kirsten Gibson is an intern for ThinkProgress.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted to begin debate on the bipartisan “Gang of 8’s” Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act which offers common-sense immigration reforms that secure the border, eliminate unconscionable immigration backlogs, and, most importantly, provide the more than 11 million undocumented people living in the United States a pathway to earned citizenship.

Unfortunately, the bill does not provide relief to same-sex binational couples because of Republican obstructionism. Senator Leahy has filed an amendment that could expand protections for some same-sex couples, and if passed that could be a positive step toward equality. But even without the amendment, the underlying bill does contain a number of important benefits for LGBT immigrants. Let’s break them down:

A pathway to citizenship for the more than 250,000 undocumented immigrants who identify as LGBT. Of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., more than 267,000 adults identify as LGBT. The actual number of LGBT individuals this bill would benefit, however, is much higher since this number does not include undocumented LGBT children or adults who do not openly identify as LGBT. For the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States, 63 percent of whom have built lives here for a decade or more, a road map to citizenship provides an opportunity to earn a living wage, pursue higher education, preserve family unity, and to finally live without the constant threat of deportation.

An expedited path to citizenship for DREAMers. Young, LGBT, undocumented activists have been at the forefront of organizing for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. DREAMers, as they are commonly known, were brought to the U.S. by their parents as children and have spent most of their lives in the U.S. going to school and serving in the military. The bill would allow them to apply for green cards within 5 years of obtaining Registered Provisional Immigrant status, instead of the 10 years it takes for other undocumented immigrants, and the fines are waived. The provisions for DREAMers are particularly important for LGBT individuals since 49 percent of undocumented people who identify as LGBT are adults under the age of 30.

Removes the one-year filing deadline for LGBT asylum seekers. The one-year filing deadline requires asylum seekers to file an asylum application within one year of entering the U.S. This is a particularly onerous requirement for LGBT asylum seekers, many of whom do not realize they are eligible for asylum based on sexual orientation or gender identity or, due to persecution in the nearly 80 countries that have laws criminalizing homosexuality, do not feel comfortable coming out to a government official so soon after arriving in the U.S. Since the filing deadline was introduced in 1996, more than 79,000 asylum applications have been rejected solely because of this arbitrary deadline.

More alternatives to detention, where LGBT immigrants are routinely mistreated, harassed, and abused. LGBT detainees are at increased risk of abuse and mistreatment when placed in immigration detention. A complaint filed by the National Immigrant Justice Center describes “systematic and severe abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in immigration detention,” specifically sexual assault by guards and other detainees, denial of medical care to HIV-positive individuals, denial of hormone treatment to transgender individuals, and frequent harassment by guards and facility personnel. By explicitly requiring the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to establish secure alternatives to detention in each field office and by broadening the definition of mandatory detention to include methods such as electronic ankle bracelets, the bill allows LGBT immigrants to remain in immigration custody without physically being in detention.

Ban on solitary confinement meant to ‘protect’ LGBT detainees. On any given day, 300 immigrants are held in solitary confinement, nearly half of which are kept for 15 days or more at a time. Solitary confinement is regularly used for LGBT detainees in an effort to “protect” them from the prevalent sexual assault they experience, but in normal cases these methods are reserved as a means of punishment. The bill explicitly prohibits the use of solitary confinement based on many categories, including solely on the basis of an immigrant’s sexual orientation and gender identity. If the bill becomes law, this will become the third time gender identity has been codified in federal law, after the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act

Sharita Gruberg is a Policy Analyst for the LGBT Immigration Project at the Center for American Progress.

(Credt: America's Voice)

On Tuesday, Leahy tried to rectify that problem after the bill was approved for debate. His new amendment, which will be voted on by the whole of the Senate, would ensure that same-sex couples in legal marriages are considered as a family unit in immigration proceedings. Should the amendment be adopted, it will allow, for example, a gay American man to sponsor his non-native born spouse for citizenship.

There are an estimated 40,000 same-sex couples that could benefit from having the same rights as straight couples in immigration law, according to the Williams Institute: 24,700 binational couples, and an additional 11,700 two-immigrant couples. These couples — and the unknown number of couples where one partner is undocumented — could see a new future should the immigration bill pass.

Given the current Republican antipathy toward Leahy’s similar amendments in committee, however, (and its likely failure in the House, even if it passes the Senate), immigrant same-sex couples face a long road ahead.

Of course, the entire argument over the amendment could be rendered moot: This month, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that blocks the government from recognizing same-sex couples in federal law. If DOMA is overturned, same-sex couples will get equal treatment overall, and will need no added protection in the immigration bill.

Steve Lonegan (R)

Lonegan, former Bogota Mayor and former state director of the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, was one of six candidates to file to run in October’s special election to replace the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D). In a press release, campaign tweets, and Facebook posts, he noted that he had “left a voicemail” at Chiesa’s Washington office encouraging a no vote on comprehensive immigration reform legislation. “This legislation is a pure and simple amnesty for illegal aliens and if I were a member of the U.S. Senate, I would vote no,” he added.

Lonegan’s has been a longstanding anti-immigrant activist. He called for a boycott of McDonald’s in 2006 after the company posted a Spanish-language ad for its iced coffee on a billboard. The message, Lonegan claimed, was “offensive” and divisive” as it sent a message that immigrants need not learn English. He pushed unsuccessfully for a referendum to declare English the official language of Bogota, New Jersey. He also sought to use local police to enforce immigration law and attacked then Gov. Jon Corzine’s (D) proposals for a state DREAM Act “chock-full of left-wing nonsense that would make this state a magnet for undocumented or illegal workers.”

In 2007, however, police discovered two undocumented immigrants were illegally working at a home owned by Lonegan. At the time, he said it was not his job to “racially profile employees” who spoke Spanish and conceded, “These guys need the money.”

But the experience did little to moderate Lonegan’s rhetoric or views: in his unsuccessful 2009 campaign for governor, he tweeted, “I believe illegal immigrants should not receive government services and should be deported.” That year, his campaign proudly shared an endorsement from the extremist anti-immigrant vigilante Minuteman Project’s founder Jim Gilchrist, who said, “Steve Lonegan and I worked together to stop the illegal alien invasion in our country now being facilitated by Barack Obama.”

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) made an unexpected comparison during a floor debate over the Senate’s proposed immigration overhaul on Friday: He tried to tie the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform bill to the recent news that the Obama administration has presided over a massive government surveillance program.

Using the PATRIOT Act as an example of a “thousand-page bureaucratic overhaul” that didn’t work, Lee said that the immigration bill could also have “unintended consequences.” This, he argued, was the case for an incremental approach to changing immigration laws:

LEE: Did the American people have any idea that the PATRIOT Act would empower the National Security Agency to spy on all Americans through their cell phones and computers? What makes any of us, least of all any conservative, believe this immigration bill is going to work out any better? The lesson we should be taking from our recent mistakes is not that we need to pass better huge, sweeping new laws, but that we should instead undertake major necessary reforms incrementally, one step at a time, and in the proper sequence. We need to face the fact that thousand-page bureaucratic overhaul do not achieve their desired goals, and they create far more problems than they intend to solve. We can achieve comprehensive immigration reform without having to pass another thousand-page bill full of loopholes, carveouts and unintended consequences.

What Lee proposes — a piecemeal approach that would require the passage of several elements of what’s in the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill — amounts to an effort to dismantle the legislation. Lee, and his fellow Republicans in the House who are pushing for the same approach, know that voting on the bill part-by-part makes it much more likely some provisions, like border security, will pass, while others, like a pathway to citizenship, will be left out.

Republicans have tried to seize on various news stories — like the bombing at the Boston Marathon — to derail the bill. But Lee’s argument that immigration reform creates more dangers than it solves is a weak one: A comprehensive reform bill will be better for national security. By removing a pathway to citizenship, a piecemeal set of bills would ensure that people will continue to live in the shadows in the US. Meanwhile, the Gang of Eight’s plan would create an entry/exist tracking system for visa recipients, and an E-Verify system that would comprehensively document currently undocumented workers.

(HT: TPM)