Immigration Bill 2013: House Speaker John Boehner Says Reform ‘Absolutely Not’ Dead

At his weekly news conference on Capitol Hill, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters that immigration reform was "absolutely not" dead, but gave no indication as to when he would schedule a vote in the lower chamber on one of several Republican-authored bills on the issue. "I believe that Congress needs to deal with this issue," he said, according to ABC News. "Our committees are continuing to do their work. There are a lot of private conversations that are underway to try to figure out, how do we best move on a common-sense, step-by-step basis to address this very important issue. Because it is a very important issue."

Boehner, who has refused to introduce a comprehensive immigration bill passed by the Senate in June to the House floor for consideration, added that he was "encouraged" by President Barack Obama's comments to the Wall Street Journal last week indicating that the president was amenable to the GOP's demands that the issue be dealt with through small, "piecemeal" bills. "If they want to chop that thing up into five pieces, as long as all five pieces get done, I don't care what it looks like as long as it's actually delivering on those core values that we talk about," Obama said then.

"The American people are skeptical of big, comprehensive bills, and frankly, they should be," Boehner said on Thursday. "The only way to make sure immigration reform works this time is to address the complicated issues one step at a time. I think doing so will give the American people confidence that we're dealing with these issues in a thoughtful way and a deliberative way. So I'm hopeful that we can make progress on this very important issue." Perhaps the biggest sticking point in battles over the issue thus far has been the question of whether undocumented immigrants should be afforded a path to citizenship - a central tenet for Democrats but one which has questionable support among Republicans.

The New York Times notes that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Majority Whip Eric Cantor are working on a bill which would extend a path to citizenship to young immigrants brought here illegally by their parents as children. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also says he's writing a bill which would give a wider group of undocumented immigrants a six-year provisional legal status during which they would have to use existing channels to become citizens.

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