Politico
By Kate Nocera
February 5, 2013
House Republicans are ready to take on immigration reform. Slowly. Very slowly.
With the Senate’s bipartisan framework for a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants and President Barack Obama touting his own legislative ideas, there’s real pressure on House GOP leaders to start moving.
But while the Senate group on immigration includes conservatives like Florida Republican Marco Rubio, members of the House Republican caucus haven’t been too keen on endorsing the plan right off the bat. Anything that could be seen as amnesty for illegal immigrations could tempt a primary challenge from the right. Not acting at all, however, could help Democrats at the ballot box.
So rather than try to reach a deal first like the Senate did, the House will start its immigration push in a different way: with a hearing.
The House Judiciary Committee meets Tuesday on immigration reform, and Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) wants everyone to be clear it isn’t to talk about the Senate proposal. Rather, it is the first of several hearings for members to hear about current immigration policy and then find out where they stand.
“Most members of Congress don’t know a lot about immigration law,” Goodlatte said.
If Goodlatte’s approach seems cautious, that’s because it is. The grumbling from conservatives about the pathway to citizenship could be enough to stop a bill before it starts. The Senate group links that pathway to a secure border and stricter workplace enforcement — a must have for GOP members — and House Republicans have indicated they might want a piecemeal approach to reform. But some members have flat out rejected it under any circumstances — saying it’s tantamount to amnesty.
“What we want to find out [is]… what House members can support on all of the different aspects of immigration to see whether we can proceed with a larger bill that has more components to it or a series of smaller bills that address lots of different aspects of our broken immigration system,” Goodlatte said.
“Find out first what you can achieve before you can figure out how you can achieve it,” the chairman added.
Witnesses for the hearing include Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that’s opposed to a pathway to citizenship, and Chris Crane, president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, the union that sued the Obama administration over deferred deportation executive order last June.
Democratic San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro will testify in support of a comprehensive immigration package that includes a pathway to citizenship.
While Goodlatte is taking it slow, there is a bipartisan group of House lawmakers working on a proposal, including several members of the Judiciary panel: Democrats Zoe Lofgren of California and Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, along with Republican Raul Labrador of Idaho. While the details of their blueprint are not well-known, the group is said to be releasing their ideas around the State of the Union address next week.
Labrador has said he supports the principles that the Senate laid out but that the pathway to citizenship is “not a good idea” and would only encourage more illegal immigration. He’s not alone among Judiciary Committee members.
Immediately after the Senate group revealed the details of its proposal, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the former Judiciary chairman, denounced it.
“No one should be surprised that individuals who have supported amnesty in the past still support amnesty,” he said. “When you legalize those who are in the country illegally, it costs taxpayers millions of dollars, costs American workers thousands of jobs and encourages more illegal immigration. By granting amnesty, the Senate proposal actually compounds the problem by encouraging more illegal immigration.”
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, said his focus will be on how comprehensive immigration reform would be any different than it has been in the past.
“I am looking forward to the hearing so I might better answer a question I consistently get from my constituents, which is ‘In 1986, we were told immigration has been settled for time immemorial. We were told that in exchange for secure borders and employment verification, those who entered the country illegally would not suffer the full panoply of legal consequences,” he said in a statement. “In the minds of many, the country got the amnesty but is still waiting on the border security and employment verification. Why should we believe you now?”
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a longtime immigration hard-liner, sits on the committee, as does Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who in 2005 sponsored a tough House bill to deter illegal immigrants from entering the U.S.
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