Immigration reform backers see a narrow window in late spring to push a sweeping overhaul through the House — a goal that eluded them in 2013.

The politics of immigration in the Republican-controlled chamber is still tough — and might be impossible — with many lawmakers opposed to any measure that could be seen as providing amnesty to millions of immigrants living in the United States illegally.

Continue Reading

But proponents of an immigration rewrite on and off Capitol Hill hope the tension will ease once Republicans get past primary season and don’t have to worry about challenges to their conservative credentials.

(POLITICO’s full coverage of immigration issues)

“For many members, they’d be more comfortable when their primaries are over,” said California Rep. Darrell Issa, an influential Republican who has favored immigration reform.

Alfonso Aguilar, the executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, said waiting out the primaries makes “perfect sense” — although he’s not convinced that the GOP base is as riled up over immigration as it is over other issues such as Obamacare.

“However, perception is reality, so you have members that are concerned, and the perception is out there that our base does not like this,” Aguilar said.

Jeremy Robbins, the executive director of the Partnership for a New American Economy — the pro-reform group with ties to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — said reform “certainly gets easier” after the primaries pass.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama renews call for Senate immigration bill)

“I think there are multiple viable windows … and that makes us optimistic,” Robbins said, adding that primary deadlines are a “big factor.”

“We are planning all of our organizing around these windows,” he said.

The Democratic-controlled Senate passed a broad immigration overhaul last June, but the effort stalled in the House, where Republicans are pursuing a piecemeal strategy of individual bills instead of one comprehensive piece of legislation.

House Republican leaders have said publicly that they still want to take up immigration reform but have not committed to a specific time frame for bringing bills up for a vote. In a memo sent to members earlier this month, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) listed immigration among several issues that “may be brought to the floor over the next few months.”

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing their own comprehensive immigration overhaul bill that has three Republican co-sponsors, but it isn’t likely to make it to the House floor.

(PHOTOS: 10 wild immigration quotes)

Even if they wanted to, it would be tough to push immigration to the top of the agenda. The beginning of the congressional year is clogged with deadlines for other must-do legislative items such as passing a funding bill to keep the government running and approving a new five-year farm bill.

And another major fiscal deadline looms in late February or early March: the debt ceiling.

The primary season will be in full swing by that point. Though primaries can occur as late as September, most of the filing deadlines for more than 80 percent of sitting House Republicans will have come and gone by the end of April, according to a POLITICO analysis.

Three of the five states with the largest number of House Republicans in their delegations — Texas, Pennsylvania and Ohio — will have held their primaries by the end of May. Texas is the earliest, with a March 4 primary. The two others — California and Florida — are where Republican lawmakers generally have been more amenable to an immigration overhaul.