Remember earlier this year when House Republicans said they would deal with immigration reform once the primaries were over? Well, according to The Wall Street Journal, House Speaker John Boehner told a group of donors that they’ll pass bills addressing the issue this summer.

At a fundraiser in Las Vegas last month, Boehner told a gorup that he was “hellbent on getting this done this year,” as several participants confirmed to the Journal‘s Laura Meckler. Another member of the House, Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, told a business group in Silicon Valley that he was optimistic about getting something done. Goodlatte suggested that the House would consider five to seven bills that an aide to another representative said would be ready to go in June or July.

There is a very good chance that Boehner was telling donors what they want to hear. The split in the Republican Party is largely between donors and established institutions — who favor moderate policy moves including immigration reform aimed at securing Latino votes for future elections — and the far-right activist base, which supports much stronger restrictions on immigration, political realities notwithstanding. In other words, Boehner might have been telling the donors what they want to hear.

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But a timeline of how 2014 has evolved for the GOP suggests that the new report is simply a reversion to form.

• January 27: The post-primary plan emerges. Meckler also revealed the “wait it out” strategy earlier this year. According to that report, House Republicans wanted to pass immigration reform, but didn’t want to lose their jobs. So they developed a plan that involved waiting until at-risk members got past their Republican party primaries — meaning they didn’t need to worry about candidates motivating the activist base to vote against them — and then pass a package of reform measures.
• January 28: The plan shapes up. House Republicans went on a three-day retreat in Maryland to discuss the components of those bills. The debate, as always, was how to meet the needs of the Latino and immigrant communities while not giving the far-right the chance to say they were granting “amnesty” to people who immigrated without following the legal process.

• January 30: Republicans list their priorities. At the end of the retreat, the party released a list of priorities for any reform packages. Leading the list (which is at right) was border security. But the proposals included measures that would likely meet the needs of those looking for actual reform.
• February 7: Boehner’s bluff. And then either 1) the plan fell apart or 2) Boehner commenced Operation Ignore This Until Summer. At his weekly press conference, he told reporters that Obama couldn’t be trusted and reform would be “difficult.” This was widely interpreted as a declaration that the party would give up on the idea. I argued that it was a bluff in line with the January 27 plan. [Sound of horn tooting.]
• April 16: Obama fights with Cantor. Earlier this week, Obama apparently irritated House Republicans with a statement challenging them to act on immigration reform. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor used the moment to repeat Boehner’s criticism of Obama — but also indicated that the House wanted Obama to work with them on the issue. They’ve said this before, many times, but Cantor’s statement was not “we will do nothing,” as Boehner’s was interpreted to mean.

Predicting what House Republicans will do is a fool’s errand; Boehner himself has at times over the past two years seemed as though he’s not sure what they’ll end up doing. But the new Journal report fits squarely into a plan announced in January that lets Republicans keep donors happy and keep their jobs. As always, we will see. But for immigration reform advocates, there’s new reason for optimism.

This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/04/house-republicans-might-pass-immigration-bills-after-all-just-as-they-always-planned/360879/

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• Politics & Government
• Immigration Issues
• immigration reform
• Republican Party

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Partisan bickering over immigration reform legislation intensified on Wednesday as President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Republicans accused each other of standing in the way of progress one year after bipartisan Senate legislation was introduced.

On the one-year anniversary of the Senate bill, Obama went on the attack after a long period of trying to encourage progress in the House.

“Unfortunately, Republicans in the House of Representatives have repeatedly failed to take action, seemingly preferring the status quo of a broken immigration system over meaningful reform,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

“I urge House Republicans to listen to the will of the American people and bring immigration reform to the House floor for a vote,” Obama said.

He repeated that plea in a private conversation with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican said.

The Senate legislation, unveiled on April 16, 2013, and passed by the full Senate in June, has remained stalled in the Republican-led House, despite a strong vote by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Over the past few months, there has been little evidence the House would make progress in this mid-term election year in passing comprehensive immigration reform, even in a piecemeal fashion.

Instead, Republicans have devoted much of their efforts to blasting Obama’s landmark healthcare law and calling for its repeal.

Obama has warned that a failure by Congress to pass legislation could prompt him to look for ways to use his executive powers to make some limited advances on U.S. immigration policy.

Cantor responded to Obama with a statement later on Wednesday, saying, “After five years, President Obama still has not learned how to effectively work with Congress to get things done. You do not attack the very people you hope to engage in a serious dialogue.”

Cantor’s statement concluded with a plea for Obama to work with Congress on addressing “the issues facing working middle-class Americans” who are struggling.

In February, House Speaker John Boehner floated a set of principles for immigration legislation, which included legalizing some of those who entered the United States illegally or overstayed their visas.

But conservative Republicans balked and warned their leaders to avoid such a divisive fight in this election year, when they are hoping to add to their House majority and take control of the Senate.

Instead of pursuing comprehensive immigration reform, so far, the House Judiciary Committee has focused mainly on clamping down on illegal entries and ferreting out undocumented residents.

More than 11 million people are thought to be in the United States illegally. Many are children brought over the southern U.S. border from Mexico by their parents, many of whom are employed by American firms in need of unskilled labor.

(Reporting By Richard Cowan; Editing by Tom Brown)

• Politics & Government
• Government
• Barack Obama
• immigration reform

WASHINGTON (AP) — Latinos and immigration activists are warning of political peril for President Barack Obama and Democrats in the fall election unless the president acts boldly and soon to curb deportations and allow more immigrants to remain legally in the U.S.

Many activists say Obama has been slow to grasp the emotions building within the Latino community as deportations near the 2 million mark for his administration and hopes for immigration legislation fade. With House Republicans unlikely to act on an overhaul, executive action by Obama is increasingly the activists’ only hope.

“There is tremendous anger among core constituencies of the president and the Latino and Asian communities in particular,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, which champions immigration change. “He has a momentous choice to make.”

Activists credit their sit-ins and hunger strikes for Obama directing new Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to review the administration’s deportations policy and suggest ways to make it more humane. Now they’re focused on ensuring they get the outcome they want — an expansion of Obama’s two-year-old policy allowing work permits for immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children who have been in school or the military.

The program has helped more than 600,000 people. Activists want it expanded to include more immigrants, such as those who have been in the U.S. for at least five years or who since their arrival have had children. Depending on how it’s defined, that could help many millions more.

Obama has said he doesn’t have the authority to take such a step without Congress. At a White House meeting with religious leaders Tuesday he emphasized he wouldn’t act on his own while there still was a window for congressional action, participants said.

Republicans have warned that a unilateral move by Obama would end any possibility for cooperation on immigration legislation. A bill to improve border security and offer a path to citizenship for many of the 11.5 million immigrants here illegally remains stalled in the GOP-led House 10 months after passing the Senate.

But many activists say they’ve all but given up on Republicans and argue that Obama has the responsibility and authority to take expansive steps to legalize large segments of the population. They worry that Johnson’s review will produce only small measures aimed at slowing deportations and improving procedures.

“At this point anything short of an affirmative administrative relief program for parents of U.S. citizens and Dreamers is not enough,” said Lorella Praeli, director of advocacy at United We Dream, which represents immigrants brought here illegally as kids, known by their supporters as Dreamers. “The clock on Obama has run out.”

Administration officials haven’t tipped their hand on the timing or outcome of Johnson’s review, though activists anticipate initial steps fairly soon. Peter Boogaard, spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, said the review will be completed expeditiously and the aim is to see “if there are areas where we can further align our enforcement policies with our goal of sound law enforcement practice.”

Despite the complaints from activists, Republicans accuse the Obama administration of inflating its record on deportations by counting people removed as they’re attempting to cross the border or shortly thereafter. In the 2013 fiscal year more than 60 percent of the nearly 370,000 deportations were of recent border crossers, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Immigration activists, meanwhile, say they feel betrayed by Obama, who was elected with strong Latino and Asian support in 2008. They complain his strategy of winning GOP cooperation by increasing enforcement has failed.

Cynthia Diaz, 18, participated in a six-day hunger strike outside the White House last week to protest her mother’s detention. She pointed to Obama’s promise to prioritize immigration reform.

“That’s how he got the Latino vote, and now he just stabbed us in the back,” Diaz said, adding she and others would think twice in the future before supporting the president and his party.

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said recent polling shows a drop-off in enthusiasm among Latino voters. “Lack of progress on immigration is hurting our chances of getting these voters out to vote,” Lake said

Immigrants’ rights leaders say executive action by the president would energize Latino and Asian voters, as happened before the 2012 election when Obama deferred deportations for young immigrants. However, it also could mobilize conservative voters.

Frustration has spilled over onto some of Obama’s allies in Congress. Protesters from California were arrested last week after swarming the offices of Democratic Reps. Loretta Sanchez and Xavier Becerra to push toward stronger action.

“We’re doing everything that we can,” Sanchez later complained. “So when they come and they pressure us it’s almost like, ‘Guys, we understand where you’re coming from, but what we need to do is we need to get a vote out of” House Speaker John Boehner. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said activists were giving “a gift to the Republicans” by targeting Obama instead of the GOP.

Obama expressed a similar complaint at a meeting with immigration rights groups last month, asking officials present to give him 90 more days and meantime keep the focus on the GOP. Participants portrayed a president getting drawn reluctantly into contemplating executive action and focused, at least initially, on smaller steps that he told them would likely not satisfy them.

That meeting, and Obama’s announcement of a review by Johnson, came shortly after Janet Murguia, head of the National Council of La Raza, labeled Obama “deporter in chief.”

Now activists are waiting for Obama’s next step.

“The pressure for sure is working, and I think the question is how bold are they ready to go,” said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. “The hard part is this is not a bold administration, and especially on immigration where the focus has been on legislation.”

• Politics & Government
• Immigration Issues
• Barack Obama