Boehner: How GOP sees Obama snags bill on immigration

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio leaves a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday after saying it will be difficult to pass immigration legislation this year, dimming prospects for one of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priorities.
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio leaves a news conference on Capitol Hill on Thursday after saying it will be difficult to pass immigration legislation this year, dimming prospects for one of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priorities.

WASHINGTON - House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that it will be difficult to pass an immigration bill because fellow Republicans don’t trust President Barack Obama to implement the law, a position that shrinks chances for House action this year.

Boehner began his weekly news conference by saying that for 15 months he had pressed for immigration measures to address border security, new worker programs and the estimated 11 million illegal aliens in the country. But, he said, “I’ve never underestimated the difficulty in moving forward this year.”

“The American people, including many of my members, don’t trust that the reform that we’re talking about will be implemented as it was intended to be,” the Ohioan said, citing executive actions by the Obama administration that have changed or delayed implementation of aspects of the president’s health-care law. “There’s widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws, and it’s going to be difficult to move any immigration legislation until that changes.”

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AP

When asked Thursday about House Speaker John Boehner’s comment that an immigration overhaul probably would not happen this year, White House press secretary Jay Carney said “There is a genuine recognition among leaders of the Republican Party that this is the right thing to do for our economy.

The comments came two days after Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader, cited “irresolvable conflict” between the House and the Senate on immigration and said, “I don’t see how you get to an outcome this year with the two bodies in such a different place.”

Even Republicans modestly supportive of immigration legislation have said that this election year is not the time to move forward. Doing so, they have said, would only splinter the party and detract from the attention that Republican candidates are trying to focus on Obama’s health-care law.

By casting the matter as one of trust in the president, Boehner tried to lay the blame at the White House’s feet for the quickly flagging immigration push.

“The reason I said we need a step-by-step common-sense approach to this is so we can build trust with the American people that we’re doing this the right way,” Boehner said. “And, frankly, one of the biggest obstacles we face is the one of trust.”

The Senate in June passed a bipartisan bill that would tighten border security, provide enforcement measures and offer a path to citizenship for those living in the United States illegally. The measure stalled in the House, where Boehner and other leaders have rejected a comprehensive approach in favor of a bill-by-bill process.

Boehner a week ago released a framework for immigration revisions that raised expectations that Congress could come to an agreement this year. It included legal status for the illegal aliens in the country, tougher border security and a shot at citizenship for children brought to the country illegally.

The framework was welcomed by Obama and Sen.Charles Schumer of New York, the chamber’s No. 3 Democrat, though it dropped a number of aspects of the Senate bill.

The loudest opposition came from Boehner’s fellow Republicans.

At their party retreat last week, many Republicans rejected the House leadership’s one-page “standards for immigration reform” outright. More-conservative members in the House reject conferring a path to citizenship for people who entered the United States illegally, calling it amnesty for those who have broken the law.

Others said now was not the time for a legislative push on a number of contentious issues in an election year with trends going their way.

Rep. Raul Labrador, an Idaho Republican aligned with the Tea Party movement, said an immigration push this year should cost Boehner his post.

“It’s a mistake for us to have an internal battle in the Republican Party this year about immigration reform,” Labrador said Wednesday, adding that the policy was “one of the first things we should do next year.”

Republicans hope to win control of the Senate in this year’s elections, which would give them greater leverage in negotiations on immigration in 2015.

Asked about Boehner’s comments, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday that immigration policies “take time.”

“There is a genuine recognition among leaders of the Republican Party that this is the right thing to do for our economy. There is a strong conservative case to be made for passing comprehensive immigration reform,” Carney said.

“The challenges within the Republican Party on this issue are well-known, and they certainly don’t have anything to do with the president,” he said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she was willing to give Boehner time to succeed. Democrats could try to force the issue later this year, rounding up support to require a vote on the Senate-passed bill.

“Just knowing him, I believe he does want an immigration bill,” Pelosi said of Boehner. “I do believe he does not want to be the speaker who says, ‘I’ll do an immigration bill as long as it creates an underclass in America.’”

The Service Employees International Union, a labor group that mostly backs Democrats, said Boehner’s comments show his party has “disdain for the views of Latino, Asian and young voters.”

“Republicans have a choice: They can pander to a small, extremist arm of the GOP and follow them into the political wilderness, or they can do the right thing for our nation and pass immigration reform,” the group’s vice president, Rocio Saenz, said in a statement.

Members of the group of eight senators who put in long hours drafting their chamber’s legislation held out some hope for action this year. If the House fails to pass legislation, the Senate-passed bill dies at the end of the year, with the conclusion of the congressional session.

“I’m still optimistic that we’ll get this done,” Schumer said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he was “guardedly optimistic” because “there is overwhelming support from business, from evangelicals, from across-the-board people we represent.”

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said Boehner was trying to blame his own inaction on Obama and pressed the House for legislation.

Though Obama has threatened to act on his own if Congress does not move on some of his other priorities, Carney said Obama was not prepared to act unilaterally on immigration.

“There’s no alternative to comprehensive immigration reform passing through Congress,” Carney said. “It requires legislation. And the president’s made that clear in the past, and that continues to be his view.”

Boehner said the distrust for Obama stems from the president’s actions on the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the biggest revision to the healthcare system since the 1960s.The troubled rollout of health exchanges under the law helped Republicans improve their approval ratings in opinion polls, after voters largely blamed the party for a 16-day partial government shutdown in October.

Boehner said Obama could improve relations with the House by urging the Senate to pass a quartet of bills, including two that the president has said he’d veto. The bills would provide flexible hours to working parents, divert taxpayer funds now used for political conventions, provide job training and allow natural-gas pipelines.

“The president is asking us to move one of the biggest bills of his presidency, and yet he’s shown very little willingness to work with us on the smallest of things,” Boehner said.

Information for this article was contributed by Michael C. Bender, Roger Runningen and Kathleen Hunter of Bloomberg News; by Jonathan Weisman of The New York Times; and by Donna Cassata, David Espo, Stephen Ohlemacher, Charles Babington and Jim Kuhnhenn of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/07/2014

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