Immigration Reforms Gather Support

11 Feb 2013

The US House of Representatives Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, has said he will support granting citizenship to children who are in the country illegally. This is a good sign that conservatives who have opposed immigration amnesty have become defensive, even as Congress takes on immigration reform in the coming months.

The No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives said Congress could make quick progress on immigration if lawmakers agreed to give citizenship to children,  which he had opposed when it came up for a vote in 2010 as the DREAM Act.

"The best place to begin, I think, is with the children. Let's go ahead and get that under our belt, put a win on the board," Cantor said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Cantor is among the many Republicans who are worried they will be redundant in coming years if they do not reach out to the fast-growing Latino electorate who strongly support the immigration reform.

President Barack Obama has already made immigration reform a top priority of his second term. While a bipartisan group of senators is working to draft legislation to tackle the issue in a comprehensive manner, another bipartisan group headed by former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice is working for reforms before the year-end.