After California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the majority whip and third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives told a room full of immigration-reform advocates last week that there wasn't enough time on the House calendar to act on the issue, another key California Republican in the lower chamber, Rep. Jeff Denham, said on Tuesday that he would try to rally support for immigration reform in 2013 with party members. "This issue is not dead," Denham said Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles Times. "I think it's important to do it this year." He added that he would make his case behind closed doors during a GOP meeting on Wednesday.
His comments come after Angelica Salas, the board chairwoman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, told the Associated Press that during her Friday conversation with McCarthy, "What he said was, there's 13 days left, it's very hard to do anything in 13 days." Republicans in the House have rejected a comprehensive immigration reform bill passed by the Senate in June, saying they prefer a "piecemeal" approach to the issue. They've written a series of bills but thus far voted on none of them. Nor do any of the bills as yet produced deal with the question of a path to citizenship for the nation's 11.7 million undocumented immigrants - one which Democrats say must be part of any reform for them to be able to get on board, and which many Republicans reject as amnesty for law-breakers. Salas had occupied McCarthy's office in Bakersfield, California on Thursday in an attempt to keep pressure on him to move on immigration-reform legislation. At around 11 pm that night, according to the Associated Press, McCarthy and his wife Judy met with the group for about an hour. "He said, 'Ladies, I hear you want to talk to me. This is just not the way to do it,'" Salas said, adding that she and her peers told him that while they appreciated his stated support for reform, he and his fellow Republicans in the House needed to act as soon as possible. "This is about political will to do what is right," she said. "This is what we're challenging."
Denham had previously joined two other House Republicans in co-sponsoring a House Democrat comprehensive overhaul. "The most important part of this is, this is a hot issue," Denham said on Univision's "Al Punto" at the end of the month. "We need to make sure that we have the entire country focused on this debate, so the more Republicans and Democrats we can come together on this, it'll increase our chances of getting a full bill passed in the House."
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