In order to deal with the Reconciliation mechanism, it is necessary to begin by saying that for an Immigration Reform bill to be approved in the full U.S. Senate, after approval in the House of Representatives, it is necessary that at least 10 Republican Senators join the 50 Democratic Senators for its approval.
So the question to ask ourselves would be: is there another way to pass the reform more expeditiously, that is to say, faster and simpler, avoiding that our representatives spend a long time in negotiations and political discussions that delay the approval of the reform? And the answer apparently is yes; and this would be through the Reconciliation Mechanism that would allow the approval of the reform, with only a simple majority in the U.S. Senate; that is to say, with 50 plus one of the votes; in this sense it should be noted that the correlation of political forces in the Senate is even, that is to say between the Republicans and Democrats, so the decisive vote would be in the hands of the Vice President of the United States to achieve the Reform.
It is important to point out that the Reconciliation Mechanism has been used by all governments since its approval in 1974 by the US Congress, however it is necessary to clarify that the fact of linking in this case, the Immigration Reform project to the infrastructure spending budget through the Reconciliation Mechanism that would be presented by the end of the Summer, has its difficulties, one of them is that in the Senate, there is a parliamentary figure that is in charge of deciding what enters or does not enter the Reconciliation Mechanism, which can or cannot be done according to the Senate Rules.
On the other hand, I must inform that the Immigration Reform bill presented in the U.S. Senate House includes our Young Dreamers protected under the DACA Protection Status, as well as the people of our communities protected by the TPS Protection Status, the children of those who have been given Work Visa, but who are of legal age and are out of status, the Farm Workers and Essential Workers; In this category of essential workers it should be noted that there is still no categorization or definition of what is considered “essential workers”, what does seem certain is that this category could open the possibility that the reform could be more substantial than it would be so far, due to the large number of immigrant workers urgently needed (doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, builders, etc.) in different areas of our economy, especially in a circumstance like those experienced today.