Republican leaders are planning to assemble a GOP immigration reform bill to fend off a forced vote this month on a trio of reform bills, but Speaker Paul Ryan would not say definitively on Thursday when or if the House would take up a measure.
“Obviously time is of the essence if we want to have a legislative process we can control,” Ryan, R-Wis., told reporters after a two-hour immigration reform meeting with GOP lawmakers on the Thursday morning.
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But Ryan added, “I won’t give you dates.”
There is little time for GOP leaders to put a Republican-written bill on the House floor if they want to stop a discharge petition from forcing a June 25 vote on three immigration reform measures.
[Related: House GOP leaders pushing for June immigration vote]
Moderate Republicans said they are a few already confirmed signatures away from triggering such a vote, which would override the speaker who normally controls the floor schedule.
Republican moderates have not indicated whether the GOP effort is enough to stop them from triggering the vote, although Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., head of the conservative Republican Study Committee and a key negotiator, said he believes they’d be able to stop it.
Other lawmakers, however, told the Washington Examiner they still plan to move forward.
Ryan said the Thursday meeting produced “a conversation that will continue,” but when pressed for a deadline, he told reporters, “Our new deadline is not to have a deadline but to work with our members and get things done and not have a discharge petition.”
But Ryan acknowledged it would have to happen quickly, and also suggested the whole attempt could fail.
“The best we can do is basically make sure we exhaust the possibility of coming together as a House GOP conference and bringing a bill to the floor that everyone can support,” he said.
Ryan said lawmakers are trying to write a bill that includes President Trump’s four immigration reform requirements, which would provide strong border security and a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million “Dreamers,” an end to the visa lottery system and limitations to chain migration.
Ryan suggested moderates will hold off on triggering the vote on the other three bills, because, he said, none have enough support to become law.
The most conservative bill, authored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., includes mandatory E-Verify for businesses and a guest worker program, which have generated GOP opposition, for example.
