ImmigrationHouse GOP caucus grapples with immigration issue
During a closed-door meeting of the House Republican caucus on Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) urged fellow GOP lawmakers to pass an immigration bill. Boehner reiterated his position that no immigration bill will be brought to the House floor without the support of the majority of the House GOP caucus. Participants in the meeting all agreed that they did not trust the Obama administration to enforce either immigration laws or border security provisions.
During a closed-door meeting of the House Republican caucus on Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) urged their fellow GOP lawmakers to pass an immigration bill, warning that there will be consequences for the Republican Party if the House failed to act on immigration.
Boehner said the GOP would be “in a much weaker position” going forward if the House did not take action on the issuet.
“He (Boehner) clearly wants to act, thinks something needs to get done. Frankly, our principles are probably closer to where the American people are, but it’s incumbent upon us to act.” Representative Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) said.
A deeply divided House Republicans conference met for more than two hours to discuss a House response to the sweeping immigrant bill the Senate passed last month.
The Hill reports that Boehner reiterated his position that no immigration bill will be brought to the House floor without the support of the majority of the House GOP.
“The Speaker said that we’re going to have a majority of the conference for anything that goes over [to the Senate] or comes back [from conference],” a lawmaker at the meeting said.
“People were asking, ‘Well, can you guarantee me what’s going to come back from conference won’t be the Senate bill-light?’”
“[Boehner] said, ‘I can’t guarantee what’s going to come back from conference because it hasn’t happened yet, but I can guarantee that we’re going to have something a majority of the conference accepts,’” a lawmaker in the room told Hill.
Caucus members said it was likely that House would wait until after the summer recess to act, but that the House may vote sooner on individual border security and interior enforcement bills which have passed out of committee.
Ryan was optimistic about things moving forward.
“I think our members are ready to tackle this issue. It needs to be fixed. There is an emerging consensus that our immigration system is broken, that we need to fix it, and we need to do it in a very thorough way.
“I feel very good. I feel we are in very good position to do it the right way. We don’t want to rush anything,” Ryan added.
Other lawmakers were less sanguine.
“There is little consensus in there for doing anything other than border security,” Representative Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) told the Hill.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said the conference was deeply divided on the question of legalization. “I think it is
