House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R) of Virginia, at a Monitor breakfast Thursday, laid out what steps President Obama can take to move immigration reform along in the House, where the environment for reform is “exceedingly difficult,” he said.

Take that to mean “not possible,” at least not until Mr. Obama “shows some leadership” on the surge of minors crossing the US-Mexican border and on enforcement generally, Representative Goodlatte said.

The House Judiciary Committee has passed several individual immigration reform bills, but they are stalled, as is the Senate’s bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform bill, which passed that chamber a year ago this week.

Recommended: Can immigration reform pass? Five senators to watch.

If the administration were serious about enforcing the law, Goodlatte said, “They would not simply call the matter at the border today a humanitarian crisis, but would acknowledge that this is a serious national security issue, law enforcement issue, respect-for-the-rule of law issue.”

Obama needs to pressure Mexico and Central American countries to assist the United States in helping to prevent the surge, he said. And he urged the president to work with Congress on new legislation to help discourage the influx of minors and family units. Right now, he said, the law does not allow minors to be held in a facility, so they are released to relatives or foster care, and then given a court date to reappear. More than 90 percent do not return, he said.

On Wednesday the chairman sent a letter to the president saying he would “be delighted to work with you on legislative reform efforts if you believe them necessary to successfully obtain removal orders against or otherwise remove the unaccompanied alien minors and family units overwhelming our southern border.” Goodlatte is leading a committee trip to the border next Wednesday and Thursday.

As for the general issue of immigration reform, he repeated the GOP demand for “enforcement first.”

That means agreeing to enforce current laws on the books and new laws that are necessary to impose that enforcement. As examples he listed: the Strengthen and Fortify Enforcement Act (SAFE), which allows state and local officials to aid enforcement of immigration laws; mandatory employer verification of legal status of workers – rather than today’s voluntary system; and a biometric entry-and-exit system to track visa overstays.

These things need to be done first, he said, before there can be any movement on other immigration issues.

Goodlatte said the “overwhelming majority” of Americans want to see enforcement first. He blamed the president’s approach to immigration – particularly his executive action of deferred deportation for certain children of illegal immigrants, which he considers unconstitutional – for the border surge of young migrants. He called the surge “an administration-made disaster” because of the lax-enforcement message the administration is sending to people in other countries.

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Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D) of Illinois is arguably the most stalwart advocate for comprehensive immigration reform in the House, so it’s a jolt for reformers when he gives up on the effort.

But Wednesday, that’s exactly what Representative Gutierrez did. In a fiery speech from the House floor, he said that the prospects for an immigration bill this year were dead, and that President Obama should instead move to limit deportations via executive action.

“First of all, your chance to play a role in how immigration and deportation policies are carried out this year is over,” Gutierrez told Republicans. “Having been given ample time and space to craft legislation, you failed.”

Recommended: Could you pass a US citizenship test?

Gutierrez had previously called on House Republicans to produce an immigration reform bill by the July 4 recess.The Democrat-controlled Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill nearly a year ago, 68 to 32, but the GOP-controlled House has refused to take up the legislation.

The timetable for a House reform bill is critical, because only seven legislative weeks remains between July 8, when the House returns, and midterm elections in November. With the GOP’s failure to produce such a bill, Gutierrez said that executive action at the White House was the last remaining option.

“I gave you the warning three months ago, and now I have no other choice,” shouted Gutierrez, brandishing a red card in his left hand – a reference to World Cup soccer. “You’re done. Leave the field. Too many flagrant offenses and unfair attacks and too little action while you run out the clock…. It’s a red card.”

If Mr. Obama does act alone, it would violate a compromise the president made with House Republicans in March. Then, Obama directed his Homeland Security chief, Jeh Johnson, to examine deportation policies and determine whether they could be made more “humane.” When Republicans objected, Obama pledged to delay the review until the end of the summer, in order to preserve any chance that might have remained for a House bill.

Not all high-ranking House members are willing to give up on a congressional immigration bill just yet. On Wednesday morning, hours before Gutierrez’s speech, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D) of New York and John McCain (R) of Arizona, both major players in immigration reform efforts, said at a breakfast hosted by The Wall Street Journal that a chance for reform in Congress still remained.

“I can’t tell you … that we have a great shot at it, but I know the consequences of failure, which will motivate me to continue to try no matter what,” Mr. McCain said.

The resolve of House leaders aside, there’s little doubt that the political climate for immigration reform has deteriorated significantly in recent weeks.

Gutierrez’s declaration came 15 days after the surprise defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor (R) of Virginia, who had supported limited reform efforts, to tea party-backed challenger David Brat, who repeatedly claimed that Mr. Cantor backed “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.

“If immigration had any hope before Tuesday, it certainly doesn’t have any now,” wrote journalist Danny Vinik in the New Republic, just hours after Cantor’s loss.

Also complicating recent reform efforts has been an increasing humanitarian crisis on the US-Mexico border, where some 52,000 unaccompanied minors have been detained since October. Many Republicans, led by Rep. Darrell Issa of California, have blamed the Obama administration for fueling the crisis, pointing to his support the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which allows children of illegal immigrants to stay and work in the US for an additional two years in some cases.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

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Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D) of Illinois is arguably the most stalwart advocate for comprehensive immigration reform in the House, so it’s a jolt for reformers when he gives up on the effort.

But Wednesday, that’s exactly what Representative Gutierrez did. In a fiery speech from the House floor, he said that the prospects for an immigration bill this year were dead, and that President Obama should instead move to limit deportations via executive action.

“First of all, your chance to play a role in how immigration and deportation policies are carried out this year is over,” Gutierrez told Republicans. “Having been given ample time and space to craft legislation, you failed.”

Recommended: Could you pass a US citizenship test?

Gutierrez had previously called on House Republicans to produce an immigration reform bill by the July 4 recess.The Democrat-controlled Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill nearly a year ago, 68 to 32, but the GOP-controlled House has refused to take up the legislation.

The timetable for a House reform bill is critical, because only seven legislative weeks remains between July 8, when the House returns, and midterm elections in November. With the GOP’s failure to produce such a bill, Gutierrez said that executive action at the White House was the last remaining option.

“I gave you the warning three months ago, and now I have no other choice,” shouted Gutierrez, brandishing a red card in his left hand – a reference to World Cup soccer. “You’re done. Leave the field. Too many flagrant offenses and unfair attacks and too little action while you run out the clock…. It’s a red card.”

If Mr. Obama does act alone, it would violate a compromise the president made with House Republicans in March. Then, Obama directed his Homeland Security chief, Jeh Johnson, to examine deportation policies and determine whether they could be made more “humane.” When Republicans objected, Obama pledged to delay the review until the end of the summer, in order to preserve any chance that might have remained for a House bill.

Not all high-ranking House members are willing to give up on a congressional immigration bill just yet. On Wednesday morning, hours before Gutierrez’s speech, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D) of New York and John McCain (R) of Arizona, both major players in immigration reform efforts, said at a breakfast hosted by The Wall Street Journal that a chance for reform in Congress still remained.

“I can’t tell you … that we have a great shot at it, but I know the consequences of failure, which will motivate me to continue to try no matter what,” Mr. McCain said.

The resolve of House leaders aside, there’s little doubt that the political climate for immigration reform has deteriorated significantly in recent weeks.

Gutierrez’s declaration came 15 days after the surprise defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor (R) of Virginia, who had supported limited reform efforts, to tea party-backed challenger David Brat, who repeatedly claimed that Mr. Cantor backed “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.

“If immigration had any hope before Tuesday, it certainly doesn’t have any now,” wrote journalist Danny Vinik in the New Republic, just hours after Cantor’s loss.

Also complicating recent reform efforts has been an increasing humanitarian crisis on the US-Mexico border, where some 52,000 unaccompanied minors have been detained since October. Many Republicans, led by Rep. Darrell Issa of California, have blamed the Obama administration for fueling the crisis, pointing to his support the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which allows children of illegal immigrants to stay and work in the US for an additional two years in some cases.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

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Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D) of Illinois is arguably the most stalwart advocate for comprehensive immigration reform in the House, so it’s a jolt for reformers when he gives up on the effort.

But Wednesday, that’s exactly what Representative Gutierrez did. In a fiery speech from the House floor, he said that the prospects for an immigration bill this year were dead, and that President Obama should instead move to limit deportations via executive action.

“First of all, your chance to play a role in how immigration and deportation policies are carried out this year is over,” Gutierrez told Republicans. “Having been given ample time and space to craft legislation, you failed.”

Recommended: Could you pass a US citizenship test?

Gutierrez had previously called on House Republicans to produce an immigration reform bill by the July 4 recess.The Democrat-controlled Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill nearly a year ago, 68 to 32, but the GOP-controlled House has refused to take up the legislation.

The timetable for a House reform bill is critical, because only seven legislative weeks remains between July 8, when the House returns, and midterm elections in November. With the GOP’s failure to produce such a bill, Gutierrez said that executive action at the White House was the last remaining option.

“I gave you the warning three months ago, and now I have no other choice,” shouted Gutierrez, brandishing a red card in his left hand – a reference to World Cup soccer. “You’re done. Leave the field. Too many flagrant offenses and unfair attacks and too little action while you run out the clock…. It’s a red card.”

If Mr. Obama does act alone, it would violate a compromise the president made with House Republicans in March. Then, Obama directed his Homeland Security chief, Jeh Johnson, to examine deportation policies and determine whether they could be made more “humane.” When Republicans objected, Obama pledged to delay the review until the end of the summer, in order to preserve any chance that might have remained for a House bill.

Not all high-ranking House members are willing to give up on a congressional immigration bill just yet. On Wednesday morning, hours before Gutierrez’s speech, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D) of New York and John McCain (R) of Arizona, both major players in immigration reform efforts, said at a breakfast hosted by The Wall Street Journal that a chance for reform in Congress still remained.

“I can’t tell you … that we have a great shot at it, but I know the consequences of failure, which will motivate me to continue to try no matter what,” Mr. McCain said.

The resolve of House leaders aside, there’s little doubt that the political climate for immigration reform has deteriorated significantly in recent weeks.

Gutierrez’s declaration came 15 days after the surprise defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor (R) of Virginia, who had supported limited reform efforts, to tea party-backed challenger David Brat, who repeatedly claimed that Mr. Cantor backed “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.

“If immigration had any hope before Tuesday, it certainly doesn’t have any now,” wrote journalist Danny Vinik in the New Republic, just hours after Cantor’s loss.

Also complicating recent reform efforts has been an increasing humanitarian crisis on the US-Mexico border, where some 52,000 unaccompanied minors have been detained since October. Many Republicans, led by Rep. Darrell Issa of California, have blamed the Obama administration for fueling the crisis, pointing to his support the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which allows children of illegal immigrants to stay and work in the US for an additional two years in some cases.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

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NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned Central American families on Wednesday that “there is no free pass” in the U.S. immigration system after touring an Arizona facility holding hundreds of children apprehended at the border in recent weeks.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who has long been a staunch critic of the Obama administration’s immigration policies, toured the converted warehouse in Nogales with Johnson and declared that the government is not doing its job in stifling the overwhelming surge in children illegally migrating to the U.S.

“Dang it, the federal government has got a job to do,” she said.

Thousands of Central American families and unaccompanied children have been coming to the U.S. in recent months as they flee violence, murders and extortion from criminal gangs in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Many of them are under the impression that they will receive leniency from U.S. authorities once they get here.

“I want to continue to emphasize to all those who are listening, including the parents of kids, parents that may be considering sending their kid from Central America, that this journey is a dangerous one and at the end of it there is no free pass, there is no ‘permisos’ for your children to come to the United States,” Johnson said.

But while Johnson has vowed to spread his message, Brewer says the federal government is not doing enough to stop the migration.

About 900 children are being held in the Nogales facility where they are processed and then turned over to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services while undergoing removal proceedings. They are often reunited with their families in the U.S. before their immigration court cases play out.

Johnson says the kids have adequate care.

“I have to say that the kids, while this is not an ideal situation, look as if they’re being well-taken care of under the circumstance,” Johnson said.

But the DHS chief has kept mum about how many children have been sent to Arizona, how many have been released and how many have reported back to immigration officials as required.

Immigration officials have also released a large number of women with children who crossed the border illegally into Texas, dropping them off at Greyhound stations in Phoenix and Tucson with the expectation that they will report back within 15 days. Officials have declined to answer how many have actually reported back.

Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 52,000 immigrant children crossing the border alone since the start of the budget year last October. That included 9,000 in May alone.

Most have been caught in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, which has run out of space and resources to process the children.

The surge in crossings has prompted the Department of Homeland Security to fly many of those kids to Arizona for processing. The department is also using military bases in Texas, California and Oklahoma to house the children before they are placed with a parent or relative.

Other facilities in Artesia, New Mexico, where the Border Patrol training academy is, and Tucson, Arizona, are being set up to house immigrants.

Doris Suyapa Leyba Juarez is one of the thousands of people who have come to the U.S. from Central America in the recent immigration surge.

As she sat on the ground in a dark corner of a Phoenix Greyhound station last month holding a 2-year-old girl, the mother of five said she wanted to come to the U.S. to give her kids the educational opportunities she didn’t have in Honduras.

“I just want my kids to study. I can’t read or write,” she said.

• Immigration Issues
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A year after the Senate passed a sweeping immigration bill, a leading backer in the House declared Wednesday that legislative efforts on the issue are dead.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, long one of the most bullish Democrats about the chances for action in the GOP-led House, took to the House floor to announce that he’d officially given up.

“Having been given ample time and space to craft legislation you failed,” Gutierrez said, addressing House Republicans. “Your chance to play a role in how immigration and deportation policies are carried out this year is over.”

Gutierrez said it’s now up to President Barack Obama to take action to curb deportations, which have reached record highs on his watch.

Gutierrez’s comments come days away from Friday’s one-year anniversary of Senate passage of a sweeping, bipartisan bill offering eventual citizenship to many of the 11.5 million people here illegally, spending billions to beef up border security, and remaking the nation’s legal immigration system to allow more workers into the country legally.

Legislation never got off the ground in the House, even though Gutierrez spent months working with Republicans trying to make it happen. House GOP leaders said repeatedly that they wanted to get it done, but opposition from a small but vocal group of conservative lawmakers seemed to derail every attempt.

Advocates say Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprise primary defeat this month to a tea party candidate who accused him of backing “amnesty,” along with the sudden crisis surrounding an unexpected surge of Central American children trying to cross the Southern border, eliminated whatever chances remained.

Now, attention will focus squarely on the White House as advocates lobby Obama to take action to limit deportations and expand a two-year-old program offering work permits to some immigrants brought here illegally as children. White House officials had signaled plans to take some initial steps later this summer, but that was before the new crisis involving unaccompanied minors at the border took center stage. Advocates fear that could delay White House plans.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Obama shares Gutierrez’s frustration.

“We have within grasp a solution to a pretty persistent problem, and a fix to a system that just about everybody agrees is broken within reach, but we’ve not been able to move that across the finish line simply because of the efforts of House Republicans to obstruct,” Earnest said.

Not everyone is ready to give up on legislation, at least not publicly. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said earlier Wednesday at a breakfast hosted by The Wall Street Journal that he still thinks there’s hope. And appearing at the same breakfast, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that the surge of children from Central America arriving at the Southern border “argues for immigration reform, not against.”

McCain also said that backing an immigration overhaul remains an imperative for the Republican Party, which is losing support from Latino and Asian voters and struggling to win presidential elections.

“I can’t tell you we have a great shot at it, but I know the consequences of failure, which will motivate me to try no matter what,” said McCain. McCain and Schumer were lead authors of the Senate bill.

Advocates promised to keep up their efforts, both to press Obama to act unilaterally, and to ensure that Republicans pay a political price for inaction.

“Our strategy is clear: it’s hold Republicans accountable for blocking the best chance we’ve had for immigration reform in a generation, work to un-elect Republicans in the House even if it takes two or more election cycles, and press the president to protect as many undocumented immigrants as possible in the meantime,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a leading immigrant advocacy group.

• Politics & Government
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WASHINGTON (AP) — WASHINGTON (AP) — In a story June 24 about the flood of immigrant children traveling alone caught crossing the Mexican border illegally, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the federal immigration court system has a backlog of more than 30,000 cases. The actual backlog is greater than 360,000 pending cases, according to federal records analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research organization at Syracuse University. The incorrect figure also appeared in an earlier story published June 22 and June 23, slugged “Immigrant Children.”

A corrected version of the June 23 story is below:

US: Looking at all options in immigration surge

Homeland Security chief tells Congress all options considered to handle flood of immigrants

By ALICIA A. CALDWELL

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told Congress on Tuesday he would consider every conceivable, lawful option to deal with a continuing flood of immigrants crossing the U.S. border illegally in South Texas.

Johnson told the House Homeland Security Committee that he won’t rule out using National Guard troops, as several lawmakers have suggested, but he warned that there are limitations to using troops to help manage what has become a humanitarian crisis at the border.

“I’ve heard the calls from some that we put the Guard on the border. I’d want to understand better what the options are for the use of the Guard,” Johnson told lawmakers during more than two hours of questioning. “But there are definitely some limitations on the use of the Guard in this respect, I think, and we have to be mindful of those.”

The White House indicated later in the day it wasn’t interested in the proposal to deploy troops.

“There has already been a historic commitment of resources to the border,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Since the start of the budget year last October, Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 52,000 immigrant children crossing the border alone. Most of the young immigrants are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala and have been caught in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

At the same time, the Border Patrol has arrested more than 39,000 adults with children. An unknown number of those immigrants have been released with notices to report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices near their final destinations inside the United States.

The administration has refused to say how many of those people have been released or how many have reported as ordered. Earnest told reporters Tuesday that he did not have the number but added, “Without knowing what that number is and without having seen it, I think we can all stipulate that that number is too high.”

In the mid-2000s, President George W. Bush twice deployed National Guard troops to the border to help augment the Border Patrol as it bolstered its ranks. The agency has more than doubled in size since then, with more than 21,000 agents.

While troops were deployed, they were prohibited under federal law from performing law enforcement duties and instead conducted surveillance and helped with maintenance issues.

Border Patrol Deputy Chief Ronald Vitiello testified Tuesday that while the influx of children traveling alone and adults crossing the border illegally with children has strained resources in South Texas, it hasn’t necessarily created a security problem.

“It’s not a challenge to arrest people who come as children or families with children,” Vitiello said. Many illegal border-crossers don’t try to elude border agents and quickly surrender once they encounter agents.

The challenge, he and Johnson explained, is processing the immigrants and finding places to house them.

The surge of children has prompted the Homeland Security Department to start flying some of the immigrants to Arizona for processing. Military bases in Texas, California and Oklahoma are also being used or readied to house children until they can be placed with relatives or sponsors. All the child immigrants face deportation, but with a backlog of more than 360,000 pending cases in federal immigration courts it will likely take years before a judge will order many of the children out.

Parents caught crossing the border illegally with their children also pose a challenge because of a lack of detention space. ICE, the Homeland Security agency responsible for jailing immigrants facing deportation, has space for fewer than 100 people in its single family detention center in Berks County, Pennsylvania.

Last week the Obama administration announced plans to open additional detention centers for families. The first will be at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico, home of the Border Patrol’s training academy.

Also Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner announced a working group of lawmakers to focus on the situation at the border.

___

Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap

• Immigration Issues
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• Homeland Security

WASHINGTON (AP) — A year after the Senate passed a sweeping immigration bill, a leading backer in the House declared Wednesday that legislative efforts on the issue are dead.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, long one of the most bullish Democrats about the chances for action in the Republican -led House, took to the House floor to announce that he had officially given up.

Having been given ample time and space to craft legislation you failed,” Gutierrez said, addressing House Republicans. “Your chance to play a role in how immigration and deportation policies are carried out this year is over.”

Gutierrez said it’s now up to President Barack Obama to take action to curb deportations, which have reached record highs on his watch.

Gutierrez’s comments come days away from Friday’s one-year anniversary of Senate passage of a sweeping, bipartisan bill offering eventual citizenship to many of the 11.5 million people here illegally, spending billions to beef up border security, and remaking the nation’s legal immigration system to allow more workers into the country legally.

Legislation never got off the ground in the House, even though Gutierrez spent months working with Republicans trying to make it happen. House Republican leaders said repeatedly that they wanted to get it done, but opposition from a small but vocal group of conservative lawmakers seemed to derail every attempt.

Advocates say Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprise primary defeat this month to a tea party candidate who accused him of backing “amnesty,” along with the sudden crisis surrounding an unexpected surge of Central American children trying to cross the border with Mexico, eliminated whatever chances remained.

Now, attention will focus squarely on the White House as advocates lobby Obama to take action to limit deportations and expand a 2-year-old program offering work permits to some immigrants brought here illegally as children. White House officials had signaled plans to take some initial steps later this summer, but that was before the new crisis involving unaccompanied minors at the border took center stage. Advocates fear that could delay White House plans.

Not everyone is ready to give up on legislation, at least not publicly. Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said earlier Wednesday at a breakfast hosted by The Wall Street Journal that he still thinks there’s hope.

And appearing at the same breakfast, Sen. John McCain, a Republican z., said that the surge of children from Central America arriving at the border “argues for immigration reform, not against.”

McCain also said that backing an immigration overhaul remains an imperative for the Republican Party, which is losing support from Latino and Asian voters and struggling to win presidential elections.

“I can’t tell you we have a great shot at it, but I know the consequences of failure, which will motivate me to try no matter what,” said McCain. McCain and Schumer were lead authors of the Senate bill.

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Immigration reform keeps finding new ways to die.

First, the Senate in 2013 passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill with such broad bipartisan support that backers said it would “be impossible for the House to ignore.” The House has ignored it. 

Then earlier this month, a tea party-backed candidate toppled House majority leader Eric Cantor (R) of Virginia in a campaign in which he repeatedly attacked Mr. Cantor over his support for a small portion of immigration reform. “Eric Cantor loss kills immigration reform,” the headlines blared.

Recommended: Could you pass a US citizenship test?

Now, an evolving crisis on the border, with tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America arriving in Texas, is straining border security “to the breaking point,” according to a Border Patrol union official.

To critics, the surge is evidence of the perils of immigration reform. President Obama made it easier for young undocumented immigrants to stay in the country in 2012, and voilà – more than 50,000 young undocumented immigrants have crossed the border so far this fiscal year (up from 6,560 in 2011). Imagine how many will come if America offers some form of “amnesty” to the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country, they say.

Those charges are impossible to verify, of course. Some activists working with migrants say Obama administration immigration policy is “a secondary or tertiary consideration, if it’s one at all” in the current situation, according to USA Today. Migrants are being driven from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador by spiking rates of gang violence, they say.

But there is evidence for the critics, too. An internal Border Patrol memo suggests that “the primary reason” for the arrival of 230 undocumented women and children in May “was a perception that they would be permitted to remain in the country under the administration’s policies,” according to The Washington Post. An undocumented immigrant from Guatemala interviewed by Monitor correspondent Lourdes Medrano echoed those statements, saying: “They’re saying that women and children are allowed to stay.”

Such comments provide compelling fodder for anti-immigration reform advocates.

Yet in some ways, the events unfolding in Texas also point to a measure of success in border-control efforts. The migrants are crossing through the Rio Grande Valley partly because federal agencies have made progress toward sealing the Arizona border.

President Bush announced a Border Patrol surge in 2003, and most of those resources went to Arizona. That’s one reason some of the immigrants caught in Texas have been flown to Arizona. Arizona has more resources to process undocumented immigrants.

The trend line has been a slow shift in immigration traffic from Arizona to Texas. The recent crisis simply confirms that shift.

Mr. Bush’s surge involved doubling the number of Border Patrol agents to more than 20,000, creating almost a military presence along the Arizona border, in particular. That has led to its own problems, with allegations of abuse and excessive violence. But it has also been at least partly responsible for the decline in illegal immigration there.

The immigration reform bill that passed the Senate, 68 to 32, last year would again double the Border Patrol – adding 20,000 more agents – and set aside billions for new surveillance equipment.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) asked for assistance along those lines in a letter to Mr. Obama Friday. He requested 1,000 National Guard troops with “arrest powers to support the Border Patrol,” as well as Lakota helicopters and authorization for the National Guard to use Predator drones along the border, according to the Associated Press. Drones have already been increasingly deployed for border security with mixed results.

Immigration reform is, in its own way, a grand bargain. Though partisan lines can blur, Republicans generally put a premium on increased border security, while Democrats seek a pathway to citizenship for some of the immigrants currently in the US illegally. Democrats have so far resisted Republican efforts to break the Senate bill into smaller chunks – passing bills that deal solely with border security without any concrete promise of creating a pathway to citizenship.

In two years’ time, when the presidential race is in the balance and Republicans will likely need some appreciable part of the Hispanic vote to win the White House, the situation may have radically changed. But for now, the crisis on the border is only giving Republicans more reasons to hold out. To some, surely, it would appear that the worst-case scenario for immigration reform is already playing out.

Ironically, the only way to strategically address those concerns might be to pass comprehensive immigration reforms.

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The White House is holding out hope that immigration reform can still pass this year, bucking the conventional wisdom that the issue is all but dead for now.  

“We have an opportunity with a new team in place in the House to act,” said Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Obama, at a breakfast Friday hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.

On Thursday, House Republicans elected a new majority leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California. He replaces Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, who is stepping down next month from his leadership position after his surprise loss on June 3 in the GOP primary. Congressman Cantor’s loss to a tea party-backed candidate was widely seen as dashing any remaining hopes of passing immigration reform, at least this year if not for the rest of Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Recommended: Could you pass a US citizenship test?

Ms. Jarrett rejects that idea. Cantor himself has said he did not lose his primary because of immigration reform; polls back him up. But rank-and-file GOP members may still resist acting, given accusations that Cantor favored “amnesty” for unlawful immigrants.

House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio has long maintained he wants to solve the issue, but wanted his members to get through this year’s primaries first. He has also said he wants Obama to show that he can be “trusted” – and that meant not making any more unilateral moves on immigration. Obama has put on hold a review of immigration policy by the Department of Homeland Security.

“He doesn’t want to relieve them [the House] of their responsibility to act right now,” says Jarrett. “And if he were to take action right now, they would use that as an excuse for not acting.”

One year ago, the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform with strong bipartisan support, but the bill has languished in the Republican-led House. Jarrett says public demand for reform will spur Congress to act.

“What I can tell is that there is a groundswell coming from around the country, and I think that ultimately I am hopeful that that groundswell has an impact on the House of Representatives,” she says. “I think having heard from voices like Rupert Murdoch should be helpful to the Republicans who are nervous.”

Earlier this week, Jarrett discussed immigration reform with the conservative media mogul over dinner at the Blue Duck Tavern here in Washington – an example of her outreach to the business community on the issue.

“Good policy sometimes makes strange bedfellows,” Jarrett says. “I was very heartened by Rupert Murdoch’s passionate interest in immigration reform. He is an immigrant himself. He understands from a business perspective how important immigration reform would be to our economy.”

On Wednesday, the Australian-born Murdoch published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, which he owns.

“I don’t believe that people come to America to sit on their hands,” Murdoch wrote. “The vast majority of America’s immigrants are hardworking, family-minded individuals with strong values.”

Analysts say that Republicans need to move on immigration reform to attract Latino votes, or their prospects in the 2016 presidential election will be limited. The issue is less important in this November’s midterms.

Jarrett repeated the president’s view, that he is open to seeing the House pass individual pieces of legislation, instead of one big bill, “as long as they add up to a whole.”

“What we wouldn’t want to see is just a piece of legislation on border security and high tech immigration without focusing on the path to citizenship for the 11 million people who are here, and other provisions,” says Jarrett. “And so in a sense he leaves it to the House to put [out] a proposal, which we are still waiting to see, for what that piecemeal, if you will, path might be.”

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• Politics & Government
• Immigration Issues
• immigration reform
• Valerie Jarrett
• President Obama
• Eric Cantor
• Rupert Murdoch