Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warns Republicans about immigration reform - VIDEO

“A bad day for the Republican Party if they continue standing in the way of this.”

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KERRY O'SHEA,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

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United States Senator from Nevada Harry M. Reid

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Senate majority leader Harry Reid says he believes the proposed immigration reforms announced last week will pass. He warned Republicans not to oppose it. He spoke with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s ‘This Week’ on Sunday.

Said Reid, "It's certainly gonna pass the Senate, and it would be a bad day for our country and a bad day for the Republican Party if they continue standing in the way of this. So the answer is yes."

"I think things are looking really good," Reid said. "They're good-looking for a number of reasons. One, it's the right thing to do. And number two, the Republicans can no longer stop this. They've tried it. It hasn't worked. Look what they tried to do to me a couple years ago. Look what they tried to do with the president just this last time. And it just didn't work."

"If they're looking for an excuse not to support this legislation, this is another one," Reid said. "But the American people are past excuses. They want this legislation passed."

Last week, eight senators - four Democrats and four Republicans - unveiled a bipartisan and comprehensive immigration reform plan. The new plan would help pave the way to citizenship for undocumented immigrants after certain border security provisions are met and would streamline the legal immigration system.

The new plan has other experts optimistic about the possibility of reform, including Paul Krugman.

Speaking on ABC’s ‘This Week’ on Sunday, Nobel Prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman weighed in on the proposed plan, saying that the Republican party may be facing problems with the progression of the reform.

"The Republican Party has a problem," Krugman told host George Stephanopoulos. "The leadership understands that ... they're doomed if they are only the party of old white people, to put it bluntly. The problem is their base is old white people."

Krugman added that the senators' proposal to create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants has "got to be good for everybody" and that "there's no possible reason not to do this."
Here, watch Harry Reid on ‘This Week’:
 

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