The House minority leader's latest strategy isn’t without risk. | AP Photo
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is spearheading a plan to advance comprehensive immigration reform in the chamber.
The California Democrat’s strategy includes introducing legislation combining the comprehensive bill that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in May with a bipartisan border-security bill from the House Homeland Security Committee, according to sources familiar with the plans.
The strategy was detailed at a meeting hosted by Pelosi last week with top House Democrats and several immigration-rights advocates, the sources said. The plan would be to publicly release the bill timed to the Oct. 5 National Day of Action that is meant to mobilize grass-roots support and pressure the House Republican leadership to take up immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship.
The thinking, according to an aide familiar with the strategy, is that combining those two measures would create a bill that could rally support from as many lawmakers in the House as possible.
“This should be a very easy thing for Republicans, as well,” the aide said.
Immigration legislation has been stalled since the Senate passed a comprehensive bill in June. The GOP-controlled House hasn’t taken any action, and many House Republicans are skeptical of doing anything short of approving a series of piecemeal bills with a primary focus on enhancing border security.
By SEUNG MIN KIM and JONATHAN ALLEN | 9/23/13
POLITICO
Other Democratic sources familiar with the Pelosi discussions caution that no final decisions have been made. For instance, the date to release the legislation could change. Or House Democrats could settle on another immigration reform bill, though no others have emerged as a potential option.
“Dems agree that they need to lean into the issue more” and that may include releasing a bill “sooner rather than later,” one advocate briefed on the discussions said Monday.
Attendees at Pelosi’s immigration meeting included House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra of California and Democratic Reps. George Miller and Zoe Lofgren of California, John Yarmuth of Kentucky, Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Among the pro-reform advocates were representatives from the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, the National Council of La Raza, America’s Voice and CASA de Maryland, who was there on behalf of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement.
The Thursday huddle followed a slew of immigration-focused meetings led by Pelosi last week, including ones with former AOL executive Steve Case and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
House lawmakers will return to Washington on Wednesday, and the House Democratic Caucus is slated to huddle later Wednesday evening for its weekly party meeting. One of the items on the agenda is “next steps on immigration reform,” according to an aide.
Going with the version of the Senate Gang of Eight bill that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, rather than the full Senate in June, is meant to strip out controversial border-security provisions that were inserted into the legislation in the final days of floor debate in order to gain Republican support.
The amendment, drafted by Republican Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota, doubled the number of agents on the U.S.-Mexico boundary and included requirements to finish a 700-mile fence along the border.
In contrast, the House border-security bill, sponsored by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas), sailed through the committee with unanimous support. McCaul’s bill requires the Department of Homeland Security to draft a plan to apprehend at least 90 percent of those who cross the border illegally along the Southwestern U.S. border within five years.
The legislation has four Democratic co-sponsors, including Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s ranking member.
Pelosi’s latest strategy isn’t without risk. One worry is that it essentially sets the Senate Gang of Eight bill — minus the Corker-Hoeven language — as the starting position for House Democrats in negotiations. That is problematic for some pro-reformers, who feel that they had compromised enough already even before the border security additions.
The original Senate Gang of Eight bill, which was released in April and ultimately passed the full Senate in June, contained several provisions that pro-reform advocates did not like, such as a 13-year pathway to citizenship that they viewed as too arduous.
And another concern with Pelosi’s method, according to a Democratic source, is that going ahead with it could concede that the House GOP leadership won’t move forward with immigration reform, and it could be smarter to wait to see how Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his leadership team intend to act.
One key House Republican on immigration reform — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia — said last week during a forum on Hispanic Heritage Month that the full House should vote on immigration legislation and “the sooner the better.”
Though their success was long doubted, negotiations for a comprehensive bipartisan bill in the House — similar to the Senate Gang of Eight’s product — collapsed Friday when two of its Republican members said they were quitting the talks.
While the Corker-Hoeven amendment helped secure several wavering Republican votes in favor of the Gang of Eight bill — as well as moderate Senate Democrats — the measure has infuriated some immigration reform advocates as overly restrictive.
And House Democrats aren’t too keen on those provisions, either. For instance, freshman Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas) quit the Congressional Hispanic Caucus over the group’s perceived support of the so-called border surge measure. He has since released his own comprehensive immigration reform bill with Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.).
The Senate has indicated that there’s room to negotiate on their bill that won 68 votes. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the members of the Senate Gang, signaled earlier this summer that he wasn’t wedded to the border-security provisions, saying during an AFL-CIO forum that “we don’t need 20,000 additional Border Patrol agents.”
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democratic member of the Gang of Eight, said Monday that Pelosi is “proposing something closer to her ideal bill, and her intention is to keep the House moving forward, which is a good thing.”
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