I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Monday, September 20th.

Immigration is back in the spotlight in Washington in two ways today, and one of them is bound up with President Biden's $3.5 trillion

legislation for a new social safety net for children and the elderly plus the climate,

or what Biden calls his human infrastructure plan. One issue is what to do about a new wave of

undocumented migrants crossing the southern border,

but this time they're not from Central America.

They're from Haiti after the recent earthquake, hurricane, and political upheaval.

The Biden administration is planning to send most of them back.

The other issue is the one that's part of the human infrastructure package or related to. Remember, budget

bills like that in the Senate are not subject to the filibuster and the safety net bill includes

a path to citizenship. I've been talking about the path to citizenship debate forever, right?

Well, it's in this bill for millions of undocumented

immigrants. But the Senate parliamentarian rule just over the weekend that the immigration

provisions are not budget items, so they cannot be included in that way. Democrats had argued

that there are tax and spending implications to the immigration provisions, but the

parliamentarian rejected the argument. It's just the latest puzzle piece in the complicated

politics of getting this potentially historic bill through Congress and accomplishing one of

Biden's goals of being this generation's FDR with economic inequality, so rampant now

and getting worse. It's also bound up politically with the additional trillion dollar bill

for physical infrastructure like roads and rails and broadband. Now, some New York moderates

like Tom Swazi and Kathleen Rice from Long Island may become key obstacles

to part or in Swazzi's case may be all of the human infrastructure bill. President Biden met

...