Backing in G.O.P. for Legal Status for Immigrants
By JONATHAN WEISMAN and ASHLEY PARKER
The House Republican leadership’s framework to overhaul immigration laws
includes a path to legal status, but not citizenship, for many adult
immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.
WASHINGTON
— The House Republican leadership’s broad framework for overhauling the
nation’s immigration laws will call this week for a path to legal
status — but not citizenship — for many of the 11 million adult
immigrants who are in the country illegally, according to aides who have
seen the party’s statement of principles. For immigrants brought to the
United States illegally as young children, the Republicans would offer a
path to citizenship.
But
even before the document is unveiled later, some of the party’s leading
strategists and conservative voices are urging that the immigration
push be abandoned, or delayed until next year, to avoid an internal
party rupture before the midterm elections.
“It’s
one of the few things that could actually disrupt what looks like a
strong Republican year,” said William Kristol, editor of the
conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, calling an immigration push
“a recipe for disaster.”
“Don’t Do It,” said the headline on a National Review editorial
on Monday aimed at the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio. “The
last thing the party needs is a brutal intramural fight when it has been
dealt a winning hand” — troubles with the president’s health care law — ahead of the elections, the editorial said.
Graphic
Progress on an Immigration Overhaul in 5 Areas
The status of the immigration overhaul in the Senate and House.
At
the same time, Republicans have seen their support from Latinos plummet
precisely because of their stance on immigration, and the “statement of
principles,” barely more than a page, is intended to try to reverse
that trajectory.
The
statement of principles criticizes the American higher education system
for educating some of the world’s best and brightest students only to
lose them to their home countries because they cannot obtain green
cards; insists that Republicans demand that current immigration laws be
enforced before illegal immigrants are granted legal status; and
mentions that some kind of triggers must be included in an immigration
overhaul to ensure that borders are secured first, said Republican
officials who have seen the principles.
With
concern already brewing among conservatives who call any form of legal
status “amnesty,” the document has the feel more of an attempt to test
the waters than a blueprint for action. House Republican leaders will
circulate it at a three-day retreat for their members that begins
Wednesday on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Several pro-immigration
organizations that have been briefed on the guidelines say they are not
intended to serve as a conservative starting point for future
negotiations, but as a gauge of how far to the left House Republicans
are willing to move.
The
principles say that Republicans do not support a “special path to
citizenship,” but make an exception for the “Dreamers,” the immigrants
brought into the country illegally as children, quoting a 2013 speech by Representative Eric Cantor
of Virginia, the House majority leader. “One of the great founding
principles of our country was that children would not be punished for
the mistakes of their parents,” Mr. Cantor said at the time. “It is time
to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those
who were brought to this country as children and who know no other
home.”
Even
ardent proponents of an immigration-law overhaul are, at best,
cautiously optimistic. In June, a broad immigration overhaul — with a
13-year path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants now in the
country illegally, and stricter border security provisions that would
have to be in place before the immigrants could gain legal status —
passed the Senate with bipartisan support. But that legislation has
largely stalled in the Republican-controlled House, where Mr. Boehner
has rejected any negotiations with the Senate over its comprehensive
bill.
“This
is obviously a long, hard road,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New
York, the No. 3 Democrat, who helped negotiate the Senate bill, “but I
think since August, the number on the other side vehemently opposed has
stayed the same, the number who think it should go forward has grown,
and numbers in the wide middle are less opposed than they used to be.
But that doesn’t guarantee an outcome one way or another.”
Republican Party
leaders, backed strongly by business groups, have said an overhaul is
critical if they are to repair their political position with Latino and
other immigrant voters.
Barry Jackson,
Mr. Boehner’s former chief of staff, is consulting for the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce, which supports an overhaul that expands high-technology
visas and guest worker programs.
But
immigration is less of an issue during midterm elections, when
immigrants are not as likely to vote and House members in safe districts
are insulated somewhat from the wrath of more moderate swing voters.
Often the biggest threats to Republicans are primary challenges from
more conservative candidates who say that changing the immigration
status of someone who is in the country illegally amounts to amnesty for
a lawbreaker.
Representative
John Carter, Republican of Texas and one of the Gang of Eight House
members who tried to forge a bipartisan overhaul, was quoted by the
Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call as saying that an election year is not
the time to press forward. “Immigration is a very, very contentious
issue,” he said.
Senator
Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, has allowed his staff to discuss
with House conservatives ways to derail the push. On Monday, he said
they were making headway.
“Republicans
in the House have a choice whether to go along with certain powerful
forces and the president or stand with conviction against a larger flow
of immigration that threatens the financial future of middle-class
Americans,” he said.
Mr.
Kristol, who said he had spoken with a number of Republican candidates,
said “a rebellion is beginning” among Republicans who feel blindsided
by the resurgence of the immigration issue.
On
the Democratic side, a major question is whether those pushing for a
broad immigration overhaul would accept any Republican proposal that
falls short of full citizenship for immigrants who are now here
illegally. President Obama has said he wants any new immigration
legislation to include a path to citizenship for both children and
adults.
But
citizenship, said Randel K. Johnson, a senior vice president of the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is not “really critical to getting a deal
done.”
“I
think most people would think citizenship is important because then
people feel they are part of the American dream,” Mr. Johnson said. But,
he added, “if these people can come out of the shadows, work and
travel, that’s what they want, that’s what recent polls have shown, and
that will move the economy along.”
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