Immigration Reform 2013: Could John McCain Support Legal Status Without Citizenship For Undocumented?

When Senator John McCain joined his fellow Arizona Republican senator Jeff Flake at a town hall in Mesa on Tuesday, the two members of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" panel which authored the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill seemed unperturbed by the possibility that their bill could continue to sit unattended to by the House of Representatives. When Congress began its five-week recess at the end of July, a majority of House Republicans were holding steadfast in their opposition to the bill McCain and Flake helped craft, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has gone along with that majority, refusing to introduce it for consideration. But McCain said in Mesa that he was "guardedly optimistic" that the lower chamber would eventually take a look at the Senate's bill in conference with the House's own smaller, single-issue immigration bills in order to pass a comprehensive overhaul.

At the center of the two chambers' discord on the issue lies the question of what to do about the undocumented status of an estimated 11 million people. The Senate's bill would offer both immediate legal status and a 13-year pathway to citizenship to adults and young alike -- about 8 million of them. House leadership is expected to introduce the Kids Act in coming weeks, a piece of legislation which would offer legal status - but not a path to citizenship - to many "Dreamers", or young undocumented who were brought to the US by their parents as children. Many House Republicans wouldn't even go so far as to support that. And perhaps just as importantly, their leaders say they will continue to pursue a "piecemeal" or small-bill approach to immigration reform, which would mean the 1,200-page Senate bill could be left to collect dust.

On Tuesday, however, McCain indicated that he had faith that his party's representatives in the lower chamber would eventually consider legislation which paired the House's small bills with something more ambitious. He even said a path to citizenship could be in the cards. "I don't accept your premise that the House of Representatives will absolutely reject a path to citizenship," McCain told a reporter at the forum, citing the "unprecedented coalition" of interests behind reform, one which ranges from business groups to labor unions and evangelical organizations. "I think we'll know more in two or three months."

But McCain also gestured toward a possible compromise on the question of a path to citizenship, which most Democrats (such as his friend Chuck Schumer of New York) see as non-negotiable. The Arizona senator said it wasn't "engraved in concrete" even while adding that citizenship would "have to be part of it". "I think we'd have to cross that bridge when we come to it, but you'd still be faced over time by the same issue of 11 million people living in the shadows," he said.

RELATED: 10 Activists Arrested For Blocking NYC Street To Protest Deportations And Agitate For Reform