Daily Political Wire

George Wenschhof

House immigration plan to include guilty plea and conditional probation - House immigration negotiators believe they might have found a way to soften conservative criticism directed at a proposal that would provide millions of illegal immigrants with a pathway to citizenship.
 
The House immigration working group has tentatively settled on a plan that would require illegal immigrants to appear in federal court and plead guilty to breaking U.S. immigration law. Illegal immigrants would be required to complete this step before embarking on a conditional pathway to citizenship that would take at least a decade. In fact, illegal immigrants would essentially be granted legal status when a federal judge sentences them to “probation” for illegally crossing the border.

“The legal process in the House bill is stiffer to emphasize that the law was broken, and to [recognize] the need to uphold the rule of law,” said a Republican congressional aide familiar with the House immigration working group’s negotiations.

An undocumented immigrant’s probation sentence would likely come with certain conditions and run about five years, and then be renewed for another five years to cover the assumed 10-year path-to-citizenship timetable. RollCall.com has more here.

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Bowles-Simpson push for grand bargain - Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson co-chaired the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and currently co-chair the Moment of Truth Project.  They co-authored an op-ed that appeared in The Washington Post today that discusses the details of their latest proposal.

Anexcerpt: The plan we propose would achieve $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction through 2023, replacing the immediate, mindless cuts of the sequester with smarter, more gradual deficit reduction that would avoid disrupting a fragile economic recovery while putting the debt on a clear downward path relative to the economy over the next 10 years and beyond. Importantly, the plan would achieve this deficit reduction while respecting the principles and priorities of both parties. You can read more here.

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Obama to nominate Charlotte Mayor Foxx for Transportation chief - President Obama on Monday will nominate Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx to be his next secretary of Transportation, a White House official confirmed to The Hill.
 
Foxx would replace outgoing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who announced his retirement earlier this year. LaHood said he would remain in office until the Senate confirms his successor. 

“Foxx’s career as a public official, in a rapidly changing urban environment, has been marked by an ability to integrate local, state and federal resources to meet important transportation challenges – expertise he will bring to his critical interactions with leaders at the state and local level as Secretary of Transportation,” the White House said.  Politico.com has more here.

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Obama to announce more cabinet picks this week - Chicago businesswoman and longtime Obama backer Penny Pritzker is still in line for Commerce Secretary, Reuters has reported, and the president is close to choosing White House deputy national security adviser Mike Froman to be the next U.S. Trade Representative.  You can read more here.

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World economy remains fragile - Five years after the onset of the global financial crisis, the world economy is in such a chronic condition that the European Central Bank might cut interest rates this week and the Federal Reserve is likely to indicate no let-up in the stimulus it is providing the U.S. economy.

With the euro zone economy in recession, momentum is building for the ECB to lower interest rates for the first time since July 2012, according to senior sources involved in the deliberations.  Reuters.com has more here.

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Explosion targets Syrian Prime Minister - Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi survived a bomb attack that targeted his convoy in central Damascus on Monday, Syrian state media and Hezbollah's al-Manar television reported.

"The terrorist explosion in al-Mezze was an attempt to target the convoy of the prime minister. Doctor Wael al-Halqi is well and not hurt at all," state television said.  NBC News has more here.

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