Paul Ryan is under pressure to drop
his support for revising U.S. immigration laws: His adversaries
are running television attack ads against him and warning of a
primary challenge to the Wisconsin Republican congressman.

Ryan is risking a “showdown with the Tea Party,” said Bob
Dane, an opposition leader, in reference to the anti-tax
movement that backs primary challenges to some incumbents.

The effort to make him switch his position isn’t working:
Ryan says he is committed to passing a law to allow 11 million
undocumented immigrants to eventually become U.S. citizens. His
conviction — dating to his work for fellow Republican Jack Kemp
two decades ago — is rooted in economic policy, Ryan’s Catholic
faith, and Wisconsin’s German and Irish immigrants.

His stance runs against heavy opposition to a citizenship
path among fellow members of the House Republican majority.
Ryan, his party’s 2012 vice-presidential nominee, has gained
some unlikely allies. Among them are President Barack Obama’s
political campaign arm, Organizing for Action; some Wisconsin
Democrats, and a pro-immigration group funded by Facebook Inc. (FB)
Chairman Mark Zuckerberg’s political advocacy organization.

“If we do it right, it’s going to be good for our economy;
it’s going to be good for families, and we will respect the
rule of law,” Ryan said in a telephone interview between
meetings last week in his hometown of Janesville.

‘Stop Amnesty’

If opponents of a new law meant to kill it during the five-week congressional recess, they may not have succeeded. Anti-immigration rallies led by Representative Steve King, an Iowa
Republican, were sparsely attended; his “Stop Amnesty Tour”
event in Richmond, Virginia, drew about 50 people. Republican
leaders sought to change the subject to criticism of Obama’s
health-care law that enters a new phase in October.

Ryan, an eight-term congressman, isn’t deterred by the
opposition. “I’ve seen it all and I am used to this kind of
political activity,” he said in the interview. “It does not
surprise me; it doesn’t really affect me.”

House Republicans reject a comprehensive plan passed June
27 by the Democratic-controlled Senate. Chances for enacting a
law by year’s end dimmed after House leaders said they would
consider a series of bills instead of one large measure.

Ryan has stood apart from his House colleagues by pressing
for fixes to the system, including eventual citizenship for
undocumented immigrants.

‘Very Impressed’

“What Congressman Ryan has done so far is really
astonishing to me,” Democratic state Representative JoCasta
Zamarripa said in an interview. “I am very impressed with
seeing him taking on the leadership role that he has in support
of immigration reform.”

Yet, she said, “it doesn’t end there” and he needs to do
more.

Also backing Ryan is Americans for a Conservative
Direction, a group funded by Zuckerberg’s pro-immigration
organization FWD.us. It is airing television ads in Ryan’s
district backing his immigration views.

On the other side, Ryan wants to “bring millions more
foreign workers to take our jobs,” says a television ad by the
Federation for American Immigration Reform. Dane is
communications director for the group, which wants to reduce
immigration and ran a $200,000 campaign against Ryan.

The ad continued, “Does Congressman Ryan think Wisconsin
workers aren’t good enough to get the job done?”

Jack Kemp

Ryan’s views stem from his work as an adviser to Kemp, the
late New York congressman and U.S. housing secretary, at the
Empower America policy group. Working for Kemp in 1994, Ryan
wrote a rebuttal to backers of a California ballot initiative
that denied benefits to immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Ryan
backed the failed 2007 immigration proposal by Senators John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and the late Edward Kennedy, a
Massachusetts Democrat.

Ryan’s Catholic beliefs also propel him. The U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops supports an “eventual path to
citizenship,” according to a fact sheet that backed welcoming
“the foreigner out of charity and respect for the human
person,” paired with a secure border.

Taking a stand on an immigration bill is necessary if Ryan
wants to run for president in 2016, said David Canon, a
political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in
Madison.

“This shows that he still has the presidential
ambitions,” Canon said in an interview. He said the Tea Party’s
rejection of the Senate plan and criticism of its Republican co-author, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, would put someone like
Ryan in a difficult position.

Poster Child

Ryan needs to avoid becoming “the poster child for the
pro-reform wing of the Republican Party,” Canon said.

Immigration supporters are pressing Ryan to do more,
including pushing for House votes when Congress returns Sept. 9.
Organizing for Action and Milwaukee-based Voces de la Frontera
are holding 11 pro-immigration rallies in Wisconsin, some in
Ryan’s district.

On Aug. 28, about 30 people gathered near a shopping center
in Kenosha. With GMC, Buick and Cadillac auto dealerships in the
background, Ines Herrera, 41, told the group in halting English
that she has trouble even getting to work without a driver’s
license. When reading her speech in English became too difficult
she switched to Spanish.

People displayed a large cardboard mock check, payable to
the state of Wisconsin for $5.95 million. That’s how much the
state would gain if undocumented immigrants could get driver’s
licenses and buy cars, said Dennis Hughes, an Organizing for
Action coordinator. The streets also would be safer, he said.

Immigrants’ Problems

“I’ve been trying to learn about the illegal immigrants
and the problems they have,” Evelyn Pizzala, 68, a Kenosha
resident who retired from the U.S. Agriculture Department after
32 years, said at the rally. She said she had been touched by
the plight of immigrant children brought to the U.S. by their
undocumented parents.

Ryan’s district is 82.5 percent white, while 8.9 percent of
residents are Hispanic, 5.2 percent are black and 1.5 percent
are Asian, according to 2010 Census data. Manufacturers and
dairy farmers in the state have backed a change in immigration
laws. More than 40 percent of employees on Wisconsin dairy farms
are immigrants, according to a University of Wisconsin-Madison
study.

Ryan called the House’s incremental approach to immigration
“the smarter way to go” with more “chances of success” among
Republicans.

The House Judiciary Committee has approved bills dealing
with interior enforcement, employment verification, agricultural
and high-skilled workers. No bill to provide legal status has
emerged in the House thus far.

‘Get Right’

Ryan said he backs allowing undocumented immigrants to
“get right with the law to earn their way toward a legal
status.” At the same time, guarantees of border and interior
security have to be made, he said.

“After a person satisfies the terms of a probationary
status they ought to be able to get a legal visa and ultimately
be able to get in line for a green card, only at the back of the
line of the people who’ve already been in line patiently
waiting,” he said. Once they get a green card, “then it is
five years and they can become a citizen.”

Undocumented immigrants have to make “amends” for
breaking the law by paying back taxes and learning English and
U.S. civics, Ryan said. Any compromise negotiated between the
House and the Senate won’t look like the Senate bill, he said.

Dane said Ryan’s fiscal conservatism doesn’t mesh with
giving “amnesty” to millions of “illegal aliens” who are
“heavily dependent on government.”

Ryan needs to avoid the path taken by Rubio, a Republican
with presidential ambitions for 2016, Dane said in an interview.

“He’s beginning to set himself up just like Rubio for a
showdown with the Tea Party, with conservative voters,” Dane
said. “He could take a lesson from Rubio, who seemed to be
willing to bet his presidential ambitions” on an “amnesty
bill.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Roxana Tiron in Washington at
rtiron@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Jodi Schneider at
jschneider50@bloomberg.net