As Immigration Reform Advocates Get Arrested in Orlando Protests, Nancy Pelosi Says Bill Can Pass House

The battle for immigration reform rages on both on Capitol Hill and in the streets of Orlando this week, with more than a dozen protestors calling for immigration reform arrested Tuesday in downtown Orlando.

According to The Orlando Sentinel, 15 protestors were arrested on charges of unlawful assembly. Around 200 people gathered in the middle of a street in downtown Orlando on Tuesday, chanting and waving signs while surrounding a table filled with a symbolic spread that included squash, pumpkins, eggplant and tomatoes.

Police began arresting protestors when they failed to move, as they were blocking traffic.

Yet protesters were upbeat about the impact their message regarding urging the passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill in Washington was making. The message was aimed at House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Republicans, who have been reluctant at bringing the Senate's reform bill, which passed in June, to the House floor for a vote.

"Immigration reform doesn't just affect the Latino or Hispanic community," protestor Collette McLeod, 24, of Rollins College told the Sentinel. "It affects our [whole] community. Immigration reform isn't just their responsibility. It's all of our duty to get passed."

Ciara Taylor of Dream Defenders, a nonprofit civil right group that participated in the march, felt the same way. Taylor placed the blame on Boehner and the GOP for the stalling of the immigration bill that would grant millions of undocumented residents living in the U.S. a pathway to citizenship. 

"We have enough votes to pass immigration reform but we have someone, an obstacle in our way, that's John Boehner, and we want him to get out of way of the progress that can be made," Taylor told Orlando-based WFTV.com.

Taylor's sentiments are echoed by top Democrats on Capitol Hill as President Obama and the party renew their push to get an immigration reform deal done now that the debt ceiling crisis has passed.

Speaker Boehner has long stood by his assertions about not wanting to bring a comprehensive immigration bill to the floor for a vote without a majority of House Republicans being in favor of it. Meanwhile GOP legislators in the House prefer a "piecemeal" approach of passing immigration reform in smaller bills. However, that approach has been blasted by immigration advocates as a way for Republicans to easily turn down a citizenship pathway for undocumented immigrants.

On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said there was indeed a bipartisan majority in the House that is waiting to pass immigration reform, but they'll never get the chance to if the bill never comes on the floor of the House.

"With 28 Republicans having publicly expressed support for a path to citizenship, we believe the votes are there on a bipartisan basis to pass a bill," she wrote her Facebook page, as noted by the Washington Times. "It's just a question whether Speaker Boehner can muster the will to schedule a vote."

Pelosi held a question-and-answer session on Facebook Tuesday, along with Democratic Caucus Chairman and Congressman Xavier Becerra, to discuss the ongoing situation in the House regarding the status of the immigration reform bill. While topics varied on the 975 posts she received, those who spoke of immigration reform talked about the problems in the immigration system that currently exist.

One Facebook user, Kat Marsh, pointed out the long waiting periods that immigrants legally in the country have to wait for relatives attempting to apply for citizenship.

"Throughout the entire process, which may last years, citizens must be separated from their spouses and children. When will the USCIS meet its commitment to American citizens seeking to legally reunite with their family members?," she wrote.

Pelosi responded that the problem was a "perfect example" of why comprehensive immigration reform was needed. "One of the key goals of our bipartisan bill is to reunite families. We do this by including provisions that reduce family visa backlogs," she wrote.