Biden to DREAMer: Immigration Reform 'Going to Happen'

On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden guaranteed comprehensive immigration reform would pass and told an illegal immigrant “DREAMer” that her parents will not have to worry about getting deported.

“We’re going to pass this bill, this Senate bill that we’re talking about here,” Biden said. “It’s going to happen.”

Participating in an online chat at the White House that was hosted by Skype and Bing with Cecilia Munoz, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, Biden was asked by a “DREAMer” who had received temporary amnesty under President Barack Obama’s deferred action program what would happen to her parents who are in the country illegally. 

“You’re not going to have to worry about anything,” Biden said. “And your parents are not going to have to worry about getting deported.”

When Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) announced a budget deal on Tuesday, immigration reform advocates believed a huge hurdle was removed to allowing a vote on comprehensive immigration reform to be possible in the early months of 2014. 

The Senate, with the help of Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), passed a comprehensive immigration bill that includes a pathway to citizenship provision that the Congressional Budget Office determined would lower the wages of working class Americans. Immigration reform has stalled in the House. Though Republican leaders have said they would not go to conference on the existing Senate bill, they have not ruled out going to conference on piecemeal legislation. 

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) said his “Republican friends” have told him they want comprehensive immigration reform in everything but name only, and Democrats, including President Barack Obama, have said they would be fine with immigration reform being broken up into pieces so long as all of the pieces pass. McCain has said advocates of comprehensive immigration reform would try one more time to pass immigration reform sometime in the spring of 2014 after the primary season.