House Republicans challenged President Barack Obama’s willingness to secure the nation’s borders on Wednesday, and appeared unimpressed by George W. Bush’s advice to carry a “benevolent spirit” into a debate on immigration that includes a possible path to citizenship for millions.
Emerging from a closed-door meeting, GOP leaders affirmed a step-by-step approach to immigration but offered neither specifics nor a timetable — nor any mention of possible citizenship for an estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country unlawfully.
Instead, in a written statement noting that the White House recently delayed a key part of the health care law, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other leaders said the action raised concerns that the administration “cannot be trusted to deliver on its promises to secure the border and enforce laws as part of a single, massive bill like the one passed by the Senate.”
Lawmakers streaming out of the two-hour meeting said Bush’s long-distance advice had not come up in a discussion that focused instead on the importance of securing the nation’s borders and a general distrust of Obama.
The former president’s ability to sway a new generation of House conservatives was a matter of considerable doubt, especially because many of the tea party-backed lawmakers have risen to power since he left the White House and are strongly on record in opposition to any citizenship provision.
“We care what people back home say, not what some former president says,” declared Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a second-term Kansas Republican who has clashed with the party leadership in the House.
Still, the timing and substance of Bush’s remarks were reminders of the imperative that many national party leaders feel that Republicans must broaden their appeal among Hispanic voters to compete successfully in future presidential elections. President Barack Obama took more than 70 percent of their votes in winning a second term last fall.
“America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time,” Bush said at a naturalization ceremony at his presidential library in Dallas.
For their part, Democrats quickly embraced the former president’s message, challenging Boehner to proceed in the same spirit.
At the Capitol, Republican aides said a closed-door meeting of the rank and file that consumed much of the afternoon was designed as a listening session, rather than a forum for deciding how the House will proceed as it considers legislation to overhaul the immigration system. The eventual strategy will be up to the leadership, Boehner and others, to decide in the coming days.
Boehner, R-Ohio, has said he wants the House to pass legislation on the subject before lawmakers go home for a four-week break over August, beginning with a measure to toughen border security.
He has also said he won’t put any bill on the House floor that doesn’t have the support of at least half of the GOP rank and file.
“I don’t know that Republican leadership has a strategy that is workable,” Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking House Democrat, told reporters.
A bipartisan bill cleared the Senate last month. The House Judiciary Committee has cleared four smaller measures in recent weeks, none of which would include the possibility of citizenship.
One would toughen enforcement of immigration laws, and includes a provision that would permit local police officers to enforce such laws as part of an attempt to raise the number of deportations. It also encourages immigrants in the United States illegally to depart voluntarily, an echo of Mitt Romney’s call for “self-deportation” in the 2012 presidential race.
Other measures would create a new mandatory system for employees to verify the legal status of their workers, create a new temporary program for farm workers and expand the number of visas for employees in technology industries.
By contrast, the Senate bill, passed 68-32, would increase border security, provide a pathway to citizenship for many of the estimated 11 million immigrants illegally in the country, expand the highly skilled worker program and set up new guest worker arrangements for lower-skilled workers and farm laborers.
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