Congressman Pete Aguilar: We need a path to citizenship and the American public [0:00-5:04]

Some Latino lawmakers are urging President Biden to support passing immigration reform even if Republicans don't get on board. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus visited the White House this week. They say they want to try and find GOP votes for a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants. But if partisanship continues, they say the president should move forward anyway and back a plan to include it in the reconciliation process. What would bypass the Senate filibuster and allow Democrats to pass a bill with only 50 votes, rather than 60? Early reports from inside the room characterized President Biden as receptive to that idea. But that's not necessarily how press secretary Jen Psaki spoke about it on Wednesday. Well, I guess I can articulate what the president's point of view is and certainly what his intention of conveying in any private meeting laws, which is that he believes there should be bipartisan support. Of course, members are going to propose a range of mechanics for moving things forward. But his view is that the conversation right now should not be focused on reconciliation. Should we focus on finding a bipartisan path forward? Democratic congressman Pete Aguilar was in that meeting and joins me now. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. You represent California's 30 first district, which covers San Bernardino County. I want to hear from you about what you took away from that meeting with President Biden. Can you actually see him getting on board to pass a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people without Republican support, or is the filibuster going to claim another victim here? Well, thanks for having me, Caitlin. I think, you know, from our perspective, we just feel that there needs to be relief offered to individuals. There have been bipartisan proposals to fix and offer a path to citizenship for dreamers and those with temporary protected status, as well as ag worker and honor, as they should be bills. All of these things have passed in a bipartisan way. The House of Representatives already this year, what we are advocating for is that any vehicle that's moving, if it's legislative in the Senate or through any other means, you know, we need to try to address this issue that also includes essential workers, those essential workers who were stocking our grocery selves, working in the fields. All of those individuals are worthy of relief at this time. And so that's what we convey, that we believe the time has come. We need a path to citizenship. The American public is behind us. Democrats and Republicans across this country agree that this is something that should be done. We think the appetite in Congress should mirror that. And did you talk about any sort of timeline for this? In other words, does he want to go forward with trying to get Republican support, or did you say at some point something has to give? Did you give any sort of timeline that you would like to see on this? No, we didn't get into the mechanics of this timeline. I mean, you know, then this was one of about a dozen topics that we addressed. And I should also say that the President and the Vice President were incredibly gracious to hear us out on this and a range of issues from wage gaps, to health equity. We really did, you know, talk about creating jobs, stimulating the economy, the American rescue plan, and they gave us much more time in the old office than they had indicated they would. So, you know, it really was just a good, wide-ranging discussion, but this is just an example of the President being responsive to the Hispanic community wanting to hear us out. And though we'll work through those mechanics, we'll work through what we need to do to accomplish this relief. And I'm confident that we have partners in President Biden and Vice President Harris. And Congressman. As we understand it, there was also some discussion about asking the White House to create a civilian humanitarian response corps for the Southern border. What would that look like? What role would that fill that border agencies aren't already handling? Well, it could help expedite the process. We already do this now with the disasters when there's disaster relief organizations and the disaster relief corps that does a lot of these functions right now. So what the proposal was, is let's work to see if we can address something that is similar in construct. So these would be individuals who would be trained by the federal entities. They could handle case work. They could handle a lot of areas and issues to help expedite the timeline for family reunification. So that's what was proposed is, you know, could we use the disaster model as something that could flex up and flex down depending on how many individuals present themselves at the border for asylum. And so that was, I think, a positively, you know, received and something that we need to continue to work through, but just a unique idea that makes sense. And overall, President Biden has pledged to move away from the Trump administration's restrictive