Weekend Leak of US Immigration Bill Angers Republicans

Reports from one of President Obama’s former top advisers suggest that the White House’s leaked draft of the blueprint immigration reform bill was a ‘mistake’ - with Republicans reacting angrily and interpreting this as a ploy to avoid bipartisan input.

David Axelrod, who is President Obama’s former top adviser, said that ‘The mistake here was to disseminate it so widely within the administration that it got leaked, and I'm sure if they could they'd take that back.”

The Republican senate took issue with the leak, based on the implication that the White House was sharing its own Democratic immigration legislation. Republican senator Marco Rubio said that the Congress had not been consulted on the matter or the draft itself, expressing that ‘It is a mistake for the White House to draft immigration legislation without seeking input from Republican members of Congress” and suggesting that if proposed, the President’s bill would not be passed by Congress.

The White House has disputed claims that the draft bill was a deliberate effort to take over the legislative process. White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said on Sunday “we’re talking with all the parties to the ‘gang of eight’ effort in the Senate. We have our staff working this very, very aggressively with their staffs and with the members.”

David Axelrod supported this declaration on Monday, saying that the White House and Senate members have been liaising “several times a week” and that “the President’s backup plan is a backup plan.”

The draft proposal did not reportedly contain any outstanding differences with the legislation currently being structured in Congress. Both propose steps to increase border security, stricter penalties for law-breaking employers in terms of illegal immigration and the prioritising of citizenship claims by legal immigrants.