Republican leaders will cobble together immigration reform legislation in the coming days and bring it to the House for a vote in June, according to lawmakers who left a closed-door meeting Thursday.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who heads the three-dozen-member conservative House Freedom Caucus said the meeting generated ideas from lawmakers that the leaders will try to add to a basic outline of an immigration reform bill that was produced earlier this week by negotiators from competing GOP factions.
The outline lists President Trump’s four immigration reform requirements, including a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers” and ample border security funding. But beyond that, it’s not clear how the bill will have to change in order to win over support from all or most Republicans.
“There is not consensus, but there are a lot of great ideas and leadership will go from there to try to boil that down into a legislative framework for everybody,” Meadows told the Washington Examiner. “I think they will try to do it in days, not weeks.”
Republican leaders are eager to stave off a parliamentary tactic in the form of a discharge petition that would force a House vote on three measures. Two of the measures lean left of the kind of immigration reform conservatives favor, but several Republicans have said they would join forces with Democrats to force a vote on those bills if the only other choice was doing nothing.
The policy Republicans are pursuing includes elements of a conservative bill authored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., lawmakers said, although provisions in the bill, such as mandatory E-Verify for employers and a guest worker program, may not be included because they lack support.
Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., who heads the largest faction of conservatives, the Republican Study Committee, said Thursday’s meeting served as the first step in producing long-sought legislation to reform the nation’s immigration program.
“It gets everything on the table so everyone understands what the options are,” Walker said.
Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who has been leading the negotiations, told lawmakers Thursday his goal is to stop the discharge petition, which GOP leaders believe would ultimately yield an immigration reform bill that lacks strong border security and other provisions favored by conservatives.
[Also read: Paul Ryan: No date yet for House immigration vote]
Republican moderates, who authored the discharge petition, say they are a few signatures short of triggering a June vote on the three immigration proposals.
Walker said he believes moderates will pause the discharge petition now that talks for a GOP bill have begun in earnest for a bill that not only legalizes Dreamers but provides abundant border security funding.
“I think the reason they are willing to hold off is that they see the consensus of the conference, that they are willing to come together to try to resolve this in a long-term situation that offers border security, specifically,” Walker said.
