House to weigh two Dreamer bills
Immigration issue to be voted on next week
WASHINGTON — The House will vote next week on competing immigration bills that deal with the fate of young undocumented immigrants with no guarantee that either will pass and resolve the divisive issue.
A spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made the announcement late Tuesday after a group of renegade Republican moderates failed to gather enough support to force votes on far-reaching protections for so-called Dreamers — including on bipartisan bills that could easily pass.
“Members across the Republican Conference have negotiated directly and in good faith with each other for several weeks, and as a result, the House will consider two bills next week,” said AshLee Strong, an aide to Ryan.
In a severe blow to the moderates’ hope of forcing action on an issue that has long bedeviled the GOP, the House adjourned Tuesday with the rebels two signatures short of completing a petition that would set up debate on legislation to shield Dreamers from deportation.
Instead, the House will consider a conservative bill, tilted toward hard-line positions that offers a limited path to permanent legal status for young undocumented immigrants. Another bill that has not been finalized would offer that status, and an eventual path to citizenship, but it remains unclear whether it could pass the House.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said his conservative bloc would continue to negotiate legislation that could pass.
But without the leverage of the discharge petition, there is less reason for the most conservative Republicans to vote for a bill that would effectively offer amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.
The agreement, however, is a victory for Ryan and other GOP leaders who feared that unleashing a wide-ranging immigration debate in the midst of midterm primary season could carry unpredictable consequences for the Republican majority. They spent weeks holding detailed talks between seemingly intractable foes inside the party, hoping to dissuade rank-and-file lawmakers from signing the “discharge” petition by demonstrating a good-faith attempt to bridge the divide.
Still, negotiators left a lastditch meeting short of an agreement as conservatives stopped short of endorsing the latest proposal — which would have funded President Donald Trump’s border wall while also giving Dreamers a path to permanent legal residency in the United States.
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., the No. 3 Republican in the House, warned that passage of the Dream Act would grant permanent legal status to immigrants who arrived in the United States as minors. The bill, he said, “threatens national security” because it would not include accompanying enforcement measures that Trump and GOP lawmakers are demanding.