Last week, the Republican Party introduced an immigration blueprint to their caucus that signaled an attempt by their party to tackle immigration reform. The one-page statement of principles emphasized strong border control and repeated a claim of the Republicans that there would be “no special path to citizenship.” So, how does this change the debate and what does this mean for the chances of passing immigration reform this year? We spoke to Pilar Marrero, an author, political analyst and journalist at La Opinión about the implications of this document.

Pilar Marrero is a journalist who for 25 years has extensively covered the areas of city government, immigration and state and national politics. She works for La Opinión, the largest and oldest Spanish language daily paper in America. As a reporter, she has specialized  in immigration politics since arriving in this country as a young journalist in 1986.