Boehner warns immigration reform is in serious danger

ana_g101 · ana_g101

SMH, it was just a matter of time....

Quote:

02/06/14 12:37 PM—UPDATED 02/06/14 12:53 PM

That was quick.

Just days after releasing the House GOP’s plan for immigration reform, Speaker John Boehner told reporters on Thursday that its chances of passing anytime soon were in mortal peril thanks to Republican mistrust of President Obama.

“There’s widespread doubt about whether this administration can trusted to enforce our laws and it’s going to be difficult to move any immigration legislation until that changes,” Boehner said at a weekly press briefing.

Boehner said he and his members “by and large support” the immigration reform framework he and his leadership team had released. But added that, “I’ve never underestimated the difficulty in moving forward this year” and suggested that because of his own party’s complaints about working with the Obama administration, the issue might prove too much to overcome.

According to Boehner, “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 president seems to change the health care law on a whim, whenever he likes. Now he’s running around the country telling everyone that he’s going to keep acting on his own.”

Republicans, including many of the party’s most prominent supporters of reform, have long identified their colleagues’ issues with the White House as the biggest barrier to an agreement even as the administration has presided over record deportations.

What stood out about Boehner’s latest remarks, however, was the way he framed this dissatisfaction. On Tuesday, Boehner’s office released a document defending immigration reform from conservatives afraid of Obama’s record. Not because his office disagreed with the premise that Obama couldn’t be trusted, but because Boehner saw it as reason to pass legislation that “would eliminate the ability for any administration to arbitrarily decide which laws to enforce.”

This time, however, Boehner put the entire onus for making the law tamper-proof on Obama instead. Given the GOP’s longstanding enmity towards the president, that’s virtually impossible to achieve. Asked by reporters whether there are any concrete step the White House could take to regain Republican trust, Boehner offered little in the way of advice, suggesting only that he works with his caucus on a series of unrelated bills.

“As I said, we’re going to continue talking about this with our members, but the president is going to have to rebuild the trust that the American people and my colleagues can trust him to enforce the law the way it was written,” he said.

Obama, for his part, praised House Republicans for moving forward on immigration this month and has said he’s willing to accept their demands that legislation be broken into a series of smaller parts. But he also hinted this week that he might consider further executive action, perhaps even expanding an existing White House order deferring deportations for young undocumented immigrants, if Congress fails to act.

For the pro-reform side, the optimistic take is that Boehner is simply saying what he needs to in order to quiet his party’s concerns before moving ahead with immigration reform. Once things cool down, he could come back later with a fully written bill that he claims will permanently block the White House from usurping Congressional authority on immigration. Chuck Schumer, one of the Democratic co-sponsors of the Senate’s bipartisan bill, suggested on Thursday that Boehner’s comments were for show.

“I’m not thrown back by it,” he was quoted saying by Public Radio International’s Todd Zwillich.

Regardless of Boehner’s long term plan, his remarks reflect very real worries within his caucus that passing immigration reform in 2014 is a bad idea either on the policy merits or the politics. No one would be shocked if immigration failed to pass this year with Republicans offering the same excuses for inaction that Boehner did on Thursday.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/boehner-i...reform-trouble

NK74 · NK74

Patience. We ll see where this thing truly stands once registration for primaries is closed i.e. May and June. There's also a sliver of hope for November December after the election.

sabzon · sabzon

Widespread mistrust? Biometric identification is being put forth by the democrats and super conservatives are the ones not trusting the very system that would "verify, then trust" individuals. How about suggesting something so ludicrous they realize their mistrust is misguided? Like putting a barcode on every individual? Then see who is more pro-border security.

swordfish · swordfish

It is actually funny to see these guys acting like kinder garden kids.
Only new congress can deliver CIR.

DreamBig09 · DreamBig09

its over. we lost. Our DACA is expiring. If house and senate is taken by republicans, we are even more F'd up in the butt

Laterlater · Laterlater

Quote:

Originally Posted by DreamBig09

its over. we lost. Our DACA is expiring. If house and senate is taken by republicans, we are even more F'd up in the butt

No rational party planner would touch your DACA, especially after midterm elections with the national to look forward to.

The Great Sin of DACA was in that it was used to call a Republican bluff during election year when it mattered the most. It was no coincidence that the administration waited to announce it six months leading to the election, and at a time when Rubio was touting his own nonexistent Dream-act lite bill to attract Latino and other swing-group voters.

DACA has become the baseline, something that is taken for granted among Latino voters more significantly. To take it away now would be tantamount to political suicide.

Sure, they might vote now and again to defund DACA, but only to posture to there base and with the expectation that it would go the way of most other votes in this vein - to legislative oblivion.

I just don't see it.

Tonyhasadream · Tonyhasadream

Fuck him and his party, I'm getting all my gente to vote democrat.

2Face · 2Face

You can't kill something that isn't there ! This is just ridiculous.

Pluribus · Pluribus

Those GOPhers are such tightwads.

"We could do that, but we don't like Obamer, so we won't".

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Boehner warns immigration reform is in serious danger