Immigration Reform 2013: Will The Debt Ceiling Debate Kill Chances Of A Compromise On Immigration?

Earlier this year, President Barack Obama said he wanted a deal on immigration reform to be knocked out by August 2013. He and other advocates of reform will likely have to wait until 2014 for legislation to be passed - if it is at all. Fewer than 40 congressional working days are left until 2013 ends, and according to what senior House Republican aides recently told Politico, battles over the debt ceiling - which has a mid-October deadline -- could push immigration reform into 2014. That doesn't necessarily mean nothing will be done by Congress to deal with what nearly everyone agrees is a "broken" system, but it could change what each side is trying to negotiate and how much ground they're willing to cede to the other party.

Cecilia Muñoz, director of Obama's domestic policy council, told Fox News on Wednesday that she expected House Republicans leaders to vote on "some portion" of their five immigration bills. Those reflect the priorities of the GOP's most conservative members as well as their commitment to pursue small, single-issue bills instead of considering the Senate's comprehensive overhaul. "We would like a debate" on the House floor, Muñoz said. "We think there's bipartisan support for a reform bill." But the Republican majority in the House has largely shown itself unwilling to bend on what Democrats - including Obama himself - consider the non-negotiable heart of any immigration reform legislation: a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. Only 24 of the House's 233 Republican representatives support that idea.

If debate on immigration reform drags on far into 2014, a reelection year, Republicans seeking to shore up their conservative credentials could see any compromise on immigration reform as being anathema to their hopes of getting back in office. And Slate noted back in July that if House Republicans are still licking their wounds over a debt ceiling fight, they might dig in their heels on the idea of offering a path to citizenship or even a simpler legal status to the nation's undocumented immigrants.

The GOP's leadership in the lower chamber has mostly maintained support for legalizing measures but remained vague on whether it would support a compromise on a path to citizenship. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), the chairman of the chamber's judiciary committee, said earlier last week that a bill he was co-sponsoring would offer legal status - with no "special" pathway to citizenship -- to "Dreamers", or young undocumented immigrants brought to the country by their parents as children, but nothing for those who came as adults.

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