Thread: Boehner turning to immigration reform?

Boehner turning to immigration reform?

The Hill
By Russell Berman - 05/12/14 11:13 AM EDT

(VIDEO AT SOURCE)

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will address the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in San Antonio on Monday at 1 p.m. in a conversation sure to touch on immigration reform.

The Speaker has called for the House to tackle the contentious issue and put out a series of Republican principles for reform in January, but he has said a lack of trust in President Obama to enforce the law is preventing House Republicans from moving forward.

Boehner angered some conservatives last month when he mocked Republicans who did not want to address immigration reform because it was “too hard.”

Vice President Biden used a Cinco de Mayo celebration last week to renew the administration's calls for Boehner to take up immigration reform.

"It's time for him to stand up, stand up and not let the minority — I think it’s a minority — of the Republican Party in the House keep us from moving in a way that will change the circumstances for millions and millions of lives,” Biden said during remarks to roughly 100 people at the Naval Observatory that included members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Obama also used a Cinco de Mayo celebration at the White House last Monday to call on Republicans in Congress to press forward with comprehensive immigration reform.

"It's time for members of Congress and Republicans in the House to catch up to the rest of the country," Obama said.

The president said he was "convinced that America's prosperity and security" depended on passing an immigration bill, and accused House Republicans of refusing "to allow meaningful immigration reform to move forward at all."

—Justin Sink contributed to this report.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/20...oehner-remarks

April 24, 2014

Boehner mocks GOP colleagues for balking at immigration reform

By Rebecca Shabad



House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) mocked the rest of his GOP caucus on Thursday for being too scared to take on immigration reform.

"Here's the attitude. 'Ohhhh. Don't make me do this. Ohhhh. This is too hard,' " Boehner said at a lunch hosted by a rotary club in his home district, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Boehner said voters elect people to Congress to solve problems, but he said it's "remarkable" that many of his fellow Republicans don't want to fulfill that obligation.

"We get elected to make choices," he said. "We get elected to solve problems, and it's remarkable to me how many of my colleagues just don't want to. ... They'll take the path of least resistance."

Boehner said he's been working for more than a year to try to push immigration reform through Congress.

"I've had every brick and bat and arrow shot at me over this issue just because I wanted to deal with it. I didn't say it was going to be easy," he said.

Despite his complaint, Boehner has said at Capitol Hill press conferences this year that he can’t pursue reform because President Obama can't be trusted to enforce the law properly.

The speaker has warned reform would be "almost impossible" if Obama continues to sign executive orders to change the system.

Last year, the Senate passed a comprehensive measure that would have reformed the system, but House GOP leaders have refused to consider that version.

Boehner has previously suggested it would be easier to pass reform through piecemeal measures.

His comments come after several Illinois Republican lawmakers expressed their openness on Tuesday to providing some form of legal status to people living in the United States illegally.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...gration-reform

Posted Monday, May 12th 2014 @ 6am by Jim Forsyth

San Antonio will be Ground Zero in the increasingly high stakes battle over immigration reform today, as House Speaker John Boehner arrives in the city to discuss the issue before a business and professional group at a downtown hotel, 1200 WOAI news reports.

Several groups plan to protest in front of the hotel to both encourage Boehner to approve immigration reform, or to urge the House to kill a reform bill already passed in the Senate.

"I will present an open letter to the Speaker to do the right thing for the 11 million hard working immigrants and get this done before Congress leaves for the summer," said long time immigration rights activist Jaime Martinez, who has called on President Obama to end all deportations by executive order.

Also protesting will be the Bexar County Young Tejano Democrats, the Brown Berets, and LULAC. They will be urging Boehner to put the Senate passed bill up for a vote within the next couple of months.

"At first, Speaker Boehner refused to bring S.744 to a House vote because he claimed the House was working on its own version of immigration reform legislation," group spokesman Carlos de Leon said. "Months later, following inaction on immigration reform legislation by the House, the Speaker's tone changed and he began blaming the lack of progress on President Obama. He claimed that the President has not enforced current laws and because of this, the House Republicans do not trust him to enforce the new immigration law."

Also protesting will be a conservative, Tea Party aligned group which is calling for Boehner to reject what they call 'amnesty' for illegal immigrants. They say immigration 'reform' is being pushed by Democratic politicians who hope to admit more Democratic voters, and by wealthy business owners who are in need to low cost labor.

http://www.woai.com/articles/woai-lo...r-in-12340879/

By Daniel Newhauser Posted at 3:41 p.m. on May 12
Roll Call

Speaker John A. Boehner said Monday that most Republicans want to overhaul the nation’s immigration system, but that a lack of trust in President Barack Obama’s will to enforce the laws is keeping them from doing so.

The Ohio Republican, speaking at a luncheon sponsored by several San Antonio business groups, acknowledged that there are some in his conference who do not want to take on the issue, but he was measured in speaking about his colleagues’ resistance.

“There are some members of our party who just do not want to deal with this. It’s no secret,” he said. “I do believe the vast majority of our members do want to deal with this, they want to deal with it openly, honestly and fairly.”

That characterization contradicts the way Boehner described his members at an event in Ohio last month, when he said they are whiny and do not want to do the hard work of passing an immigration rewrite. On Monday, Boehner instead blamed Obama — namely his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and delays to the Affordable Care Act’s implementation — for breaching trust with House Republicans.

“We’re at a point where my colleagues don’t trust that the president will implement the law the way we would see it passed. So I put the ball back in the president’s court. He’s going to have to do something to demonstrate his trustworthiness,” Boehner said.

Boehner said he thinks it is important to pass an immigration policy rewrite, but he said it is impossible to do without his colleagues’ consent, using a favorite phrase of his: “A leader without followers is just a man taking a walk.”

The speaker reiterated that he would like to pass an immigration package in “chunks,” likely starting with border enforcement. But he declined to wade further into the policy, noting that, “I don’t want to make my job harder than it already is.”

Boehner was asked about the politics of immigration, but, to applause from the audience, declined to answer, saying only: “This is not about politics, not about elections. It’s about doing the right thing for the American people. It’s about doing the right thing for the country. Period.”

http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/boehne...on-refom/?dcz=