Thread: House immigration group at impasse

By JAKE SHERMAN, CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN and ANNA PALMER | 5/14/13 7:04 PM EDT
POLITICO


There's still some 'outstanding issues,' but we’re 'very close,' Xavier Becerra said. | AP Photo

The House’s bipartisan immigration group is at a crippling impasse, and top aides and lawmakers are unsure if they’ll ever come to the agreement they’ve sought for four years, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the discussions.

With the Senate advancing its own bill this week, the House group’s problems are multifaceted and help explain the long delay in releasing legislation.

The most polarizing disagreement is over a so-called trigger that would eliminate the legalization process for 11 million undocumented immigrants if an employment verification program — called E-Verify — is not in place in five years. Most Democrats consider that trigger too harsh, but Republicans insist on it.

There is also an ongoing divide over how undocumented immigrants would be covered by the nation’s new health care law — Republicans are accusing Democrats of walking away from an agreement that they should provide their own health insurance, and instead insisting on Senate-blessed language.

Furthermore, House Republicans continue to reject a compromise on the number of visas to be issued to low-skilled or guest workers. That compromise was painstakingly crafted between the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and labor interests before the introduction of the Senate bill.

There are disagreements between and within the parties on these key policies, and real uncertainty on when the group should release a framework. Some Democrats and immigration reform advocates don’t want the House to move quickly. They are pressuring the group to slow down and wait until the Senate passes a bill before announcing a compromise, fearful that a conservative House bill would pull the reform effort to the right too soon.

Tensions are also flaring inside the bipartisan group. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra of California and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) last week had a heated clash over how far their party should move toward Republicans in order to get a bipartisan product. Gutierrez has been far more eager to compromise so that the group will have something to show for four years’ worth of work.

The lack of progress has been so disconcerting that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) approached Republican members of the group last week on the House floor and encouraged them to release something — anything, even if it’s not bipartisan — so the leadership can begin getting feedback from lawmakers and stakeholders. The concern for leadership: The Senate is moving so swiftly that the House won’t be able to lay down its own marker.

“I certainly will say that … there still are some outstanding issues in our negotiations,” Becerra said in an interview Tuesday. “But I still believe that we’re so very close.”

He added, “Without going into the detail or confirming or denying some of the issues that are out there, I think that it’s clear there are some issues that we want to resolve that makes the package really work well together.”

The House’s difficulties display why, despite positive signs from the Senate, a comprehensive immigration overhaul is far from a sure bet this Congress. House Republican leadership aides are far from convinced that the Senate will pass its own bill. Even if they do, it’s still a long shot this Congress.

“What they don’t realize, as with almost every issue in play right now, is that just because something gets 65 [plus] votes in the Senate doesn’t make it viable in the House,” a senior GOP aide said, describing his party’s thinking. “We simply won’t get jammed by a Senate immigration bill. Even though we’d like to get this issue done and off the table so that we can start aggressively making the case to immigrants that we are their natural home, we won’t take a political deal that doesn’t solve the problem of illegal immigration. Just won’t.”

There are practical implications at play, too. If the House doesn’t pass some immigration bill, it will be unable to go to a formal conference negotiation with a Senate-passed bill. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is moving on a parallel path on immigration legislation.

Sources involved in the talks say a breakthrough is still possible, yet they remain at odds on fundamental issues.

These aren’t the only tensions. Many House conservatives — led by figures like Rep. Steve King of Iowa — aren’t interested in the kind of immigration proposals that are currently under consideration in Washington. They’re too expensive, they say, and they dismiss the proposals as amnesty. They also shrug off their political upside with Hispanic voters.

All of this explains why, after four years, the House group has not released a compromise. There was talk in both parties as recently as last week about releasing information on the negotiations, but even those staff-level discussions have broken down.

The problem isn’t simply that there is disagreement, but it is how long these problems have lingered.

The House Republican resistance to the Chamber of Commerce and labor visa compromise has been voiced for months. Democrats contend that the House GOP privately said they’d consider the language but later backed away.

The biggest Democratic gripe is the so-called trigger, which ends the legalization process if an E-Verify system is not in place in five years.

But also at issue is the kind of health care that the 11 million undocumented immigrants would receive. Republicans and Democrats have long discussed a proposal requiring newly documented immigrants to provide their own health insurance — counties, hospitals and the federal government would not be responsible. Obamacare has complicated that. Now, Democrats are pushing for the Senate language, which says that immigrants on the initial pathway to citizenship wouldn’t be eligible for subsidies under the health care law. Republicans are split whether they should accept that Senate language.

Democrats in House leadership and the White House have been cool to the trigger and Republican health care proposals. They’ve expressed their hesitation and have an ally in Becerra, who is in both the immigration group and House leadership.

The House group has had help from both parties’ leadership and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee who went to Chicago to push reform with Gutierrez. The group includes Democrats Becerra; Gutierrez; Reps. Zoe Lofgren of California and John Yarmuth of Kentucky; and Republican Reps. Sam Johnson and John Carter of Texas, Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida and Raul Labrador of Idaho.

Boehner hinted at this last week during a news conference, when he said that “the House is going to work its will on immigration reform.”

And some in Republican leadership — chiefly Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) — have tried to downplay expectations for a comprehensive deal, saying Congress should pass only those elements of immigration reform that enjoy wide bipartisan support.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story listed the wrong state for Rep. Luis Gutierrez.

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Laughs.................you can forget passing any Amnesty Bill with whats going on in DC right now............say bye bye.