House Republican leaders will try again Wednesday to pass a broad immigration reform bill, despite lingering opposition from conservatives who favor a tougher bill, and public predictions that the vote will fail.
If the bill goes down, lawmakers will be under pressure to take up a narrow measure that would allow children to remain with adults detained for illegally crossing the southern border, an issue that both Republicans and Democrats want to solve urgently.
Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said he wants the House “to do as well as we possibly can” on the immigration vote, and if it fails, he’ll turn to the narrow bill.
“If that doesn’t succeed, then we’ll cross that bridge,” Ryan said.
Republicans met in a closed-door session Tuesday morning to discuss provisions that could be added to the immigration reform measure he wrote. Last week, Ryan delayed a vote on the bill when there weren’t enough votes for it.
Ryan called the legislation “a great consensus bill,” and pledged after the meeting the House will hold a Wednesday vote.
But conservatives leaving the meeting said the consensus bill, which may now include mandatory use of E-Verify and a program for immigrant farm workers, still doesn’t go far enough.
Many conservatives want additional changes to push the bill closer to an immigration reform measure authored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., that won 193 votes last week but fell short of passage.
Conservatives want the compromise bill to eliminate a pathway to citizenship for the parents of “Dreamers,” who they brought to the country illegally as children. Conservatives also want the compromise bill to include a provision to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities that shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration officials.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a leading conservative and founder of the House Freedom Caucus, is among lawmakers who want Ryan to abandon the compromise bill and instead go back to the Goodlatte measure.
“I think we should take up the Goodlatte bill and focus the effort on that,” Jordan said. He predicted the compromise bill will fail, which would then give leaders a motive to reconsider the Goodlatte measure.
“Maybe tomorrow, after the vote happens, they will go back to it,” Jordan theorized.
Ryan told the Washington Examiner that despite conservative criticism, Republican leaders have worked hard since February to try to round up support for the Goodlatte measure.
“We’ve been whipping this thing since February,” Ryan said. “There is hardly a bill we have put as much effort in as the Goodlatte bill.”
But the measure does not have enough support from moderates, who want a broader and easier pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers” and a less restricted chain migration program than is offered in the Goodlatte bill.
The focus on immigration has prompted the appropriators to delay committee spending bill consideration this week for both Health and Human Services and Homeland Security funding for fiscal 2019.
“We are trying to solve the immigration bill problem and keep attention on that,” said Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., a senior appropriator.
Republican leaders are now counting votes to determine whether the Wednesday vote has any chance of success, lawmakers said.
“We’ll know soon,” Rogers said.
