WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. House Republican leaders will outline their principles for immigration reform at a party meeting this week, House Speaker John Boehner said on Tuesday.

Immigration reform advocates, who saw their hopes dashed in 2013 for major legislation, have been waiting for the House Republican leadership to take such a step.

Boehner did not give any details of the principles, nor did he promise specific legislative action in the near term.

“We’re going to outline our standards, principles of immigration reform and have a conversation with members,” Boehner told a news conference after a party meeting near the U.S. Capitol.

“Once we talk to our members, we’ll have more to say about how we move forward,” Boehner said.

Boehner told his rank-and-file party members earlier this month that the party leaders were getting ready to lay out a framework for immigration reform.

Last year began on a similarly upbeat note after President Barack Obama cruised to re-election the previous November with the support of more than 70 percent of Hispanic voters, who have been clamoring for immigration reform.

The Democratic-run Senate last June passed a sweeping immigration bill that would give millions of undocumented immigrants a pathway to U.S. citizenship. The legislation has languished in the House, where Republicans have the majority.

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, a supporter of overhauling U.S. immigration laws, said Democrats looked forward to seeing the Republican principles and getting a chance to vote on immigration reform.

“We are very hopeful, and we urge our Republican colleagues to bring to the floor that which they support,” Hoyer told reporters.

Senior Republican aides have said the House does not plan to pass a comprehensive bill like the Senate did. Instead, House Republicans will approach the subject “step by step,” they say.

They have said the immigration reform framework could discuss the need for better U.S. border controls and beefing up interior security so that companies cannot easily hire undocumented workers.

Perhaps the most challenging principle to be addressed is what to do about the 11 million immigrants already in the United States illegally, many brought here as children.

And while Republicans are interested in getting more votes from Latinos, some Republicans fear that raising the controversial issue in a mid-term congressional election year could put unnecessary strains on the party.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Andrew Hay)

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Washington (AFP) – US Republicans will lay out principles on immigration policy this week at their party retreat, amid an internal debate over whether to address the lightning-rod issue ahead of November’s congressional elections.

On the day after President Barack Obama’s Tuesday night State of the Union speech, the 232 Republicans in the House of Representatives will seclude themselves at a resort on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to thrash out policy guidelines for 2014.

“And on Thursday… we’re going to outline our standards, principles of immigration reform and have a conversation with our members,” House Speaker John Boehner told reporters Tuesday.

“And once that conversation is over, we’ll get a better feel for what members have in mind.”

The debate comes as congressional aides acknowledge that some Republicans at the retreat will push for an overhaul of the country’s outdated immigration laws that includes a pathway to legal status for many of the 11 million people living in the shadows in the United States.

The aides told The New York Times that the statement of principles would stop short of extending citizenship to adults illegally in the United States, although Republicans would back a path to citizenship for those illegally brought to the country as children.

Republican leaders have acknowledged the need for immigration reform, citing the party’s low support among the country’s growing Hispanic community.

But they have stressed they will tackle the reform piecemeal, passing bills that address issues such as improving border security.

They are also sensitive to the concerns of party conservatives that legalization of illegal immigrations is akin to amnesty, a warning expressly put forward Monday in an editorial in National Review magazine.

“House leadership is about to roll out a set of immigration principles reportedly including an amnesty for illegal aliens, and presumably will follow up with a push to pass them through the House. This is legislative strategy as unforced error,” the prominent conservative magazine wrote.

“The correct course is easy and eminently achievable: Do nothing” on immigration, the Review said, and instead focus Republican attention on battling against President Barack Obama’s troubled health care reform law.

A landmark Senate bill last year offered the most comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws in a generation, boosting border security, reforming visa rules and providing a 13-year pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.

But while that bipartisan bill passed the Senate in mid-2013, the Republican-led House refused to take it up, despite calls from business groups that support action on immigration as a way to boost the economy.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said Friday that a Republican Party that ignores the nation’s Hispanics and balks at immigration overhaul does so at its political peril as Republicans pressured the House GOP to act this year.

“If you are against the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country, you and your party don’t have a future,” Bloomberg said flatly at a forum on immigration with Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, who served in President George W. Bush’s administration.

National Republicans insist that the party must pass reforms and address the issue of the 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally to be competitive in presidential elections. In 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who suggested that immigrants “self-deport,” won just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other GOP leaders are working on a set of principles on immigration that they expect to present to the Republican caucus next week at its annual retreat.

While the document has given new hope to immigration proponents, opposition still remains strong in the House, where many Republicans fear granting amnesty to those here illegally, worry about the political fallout in their districts and oppose giving President Barack Obama a long-sought legislative victory.

The forum sponsored by the Partnership for a New American Economy and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was a fresh reminder of the divide within the GOP between national Republicans and many in Congress. It marked one of the first public events for Bloomberg since he stepped down as mayor.

“We need comprehensive immigration reform. To be blunt, we have a dumb system,” said Snyder, who described efforts in Michigan to grant visas to immigrants for work.

He said it would “turbo-charge” the economy in places like Detroit.

Gutierrez said that without immigration overhaul, “our workforce down the road doesn’t grow,” and argued that there was increasing recognition within the GOP that it must be the party of immigration.

The Senate last year passed a comprehensive, bipartisan bill that addressed border security, provided enforcement measures and offered a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally. The measure stalled in the GOP-led House, where Republican leaders have insisted that they will take a piecemeal approach.

“It’s up to the leadership,” said Bloomberg, a Republican-turned-independent, “if Boehner wants to get it done. He is an accomplished politician. He’s been around a long time. He’s got a tough hand, but that’s what leadership is all about and his tactics will be what he’s comfortable with.”

Randy Johnson, vice president of the Chamber and the point person on immigration, said Boehner is working on a unified document that the GOP caucus could back.

Unclear is how the principles translate into legislation and how far it would go. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the No. 3 leader in the House, expressed support this week for legalization for many of the immigrants here illegally while Democrats have pressed for a path to citizenship.

An unusual coalition of business, labor and evangelicals has lobbied hard for immigration legislation. Thomas Donohue, president of the Chamber of Commerce, has said immigration overhaul is a top priority this year. Donohue met with Boehner last week.

The issue is also crucial to several House Republicans whose districts have seen an increase in Hispanics and who are concerned about their re-election chances.

Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., who met with Boehner earlier this month, said the speaker is “very committed to getting it done and getting it done this year. He quoted Boehner as saying, “There’s no good time to do it, so let’s just get it done now.’”

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