The Associated Press confirmed on Monday that Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R- Fla.), a House Republican and former member of the lower legislative chamber's bipartisan "Gang of 8" on immigration reform, would meet with President Barack Obama on Thursday at the White House. Diaz-Balart had mentioned that he would be meeting with the president during an earlier interview with Florida radio station WGCU, where the representative praised a recent shift by Obama in which the president said he would be open to House Republicans' proposed "piecemeal" approach to immigration reform as long as it included a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 11.7 million undocumented immigrants.
In that interview, Diaz-Balart said Obama's shift on the issue - the president had previously called for a single comprehensive overhaul, such as the one passed by the Senate in June - presented an "opportunity" for proponents of immigration reform. "Is it a sure thing? Absolutely not," he said, according to WGCU. "Our biggest enemy right now is time. We need time on the floor. Every day or week or month that goes by our chances of getting it done are less and less. But can we get it done? Yes. Do I think we are getting to get it done? I am cautiously optimistic that we are going to get it done."
The House "Gang of 8" on immigration dissolved in late September after the second and third of the four Republicans in the group announced they were leaving, citing fears that the Department of Homeland Security would fail to comply with border-enforcement measures called for by the group's comprehensive legislation. They also pointed to what they called "the [Obama] administration's practice of hand-picking what parts of laws they wish to enforce" as one which "has irrevocably damaged our efforts of fixing our broken immigration system."
Since then, Diaz-Balart has sought out another small group of House GOP lawmakers to help craft another proposal, one which will have an emphasis on tough border-enforcement measures. He told the Wall Street Journal last week that he and his group's plan would offer undocumented immigrants a way to "get right with the law" and allow many of them to gain legal status, though it's unclear if that would mean it would put them on a path to full citizenship. "One of the things we keep hearing is folks that broke the law - whether they overstayed their visa or crossed the border unlawfully - they cannot have more or additional rights than folks who have been doing everything patiently and legally," he told the paper.
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