Immigration Reform 2013: Will House Republicans Ever Back A Path To Citizenship?

Over the July 4th Congressional recess, a bipartisan group of seven House representatives were expected to finish up work on their own version of an immigration reform bill. The unveiling of the legislation may mark a second stage in battles over immigration reform after House Speaker John Boehner (R -Ohio) said he would not introduce the Senate's version of a bill to the House floor for debate and a vote because that version did not have the support of the majority of Republican Party members. At the heart of their opposition was the offer of legal status and a path to citizenship for millions of the nation's 11 million undocumented. The House bill will probably dangle the offer of a path to citizenship, but it remains to be seen what it will hinge on.

In past weeks, as the Senate negotiated for greater support among its members and eventually passed its bill 68-27, the House kept churning out single-issue proposals reflecting the priorities of its conservative majority: a bill giving more visas for high-skilled workers, a bill creating a new guest worker program for farm labor and offering little to protect against the industry's rampant worker abuse, a bill mandating employers to implement an electronic work eligibility system within two years, and a bill which would grant significant autonomy to local police departments which sought to carry out immigration-related operations. Leaders in the House indicated they would not let themselves be pressured by mounting support for the Senate bill.

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Last week, as the House committee continued work on its more comprehensive bill, a Democratic congressional source familiar with the discussions told CNN that the bill would establish border security triggers which would have to be met before undocumented immigrants could begin to register for legal status. This would stand in contrast to what the Senate envisioned for the undocumented. In its legislation, the Department of Homeland Security would have to submit a report hashing out its border security strategy before undocumented could gain legal status. The strategy would then have to be proven to get 100 percent of the US-Mexico border under surveillance and apprehend 90 percent of those who cross illegally within 10 years in order for now-undocumented immigrants to apply for permanent residency.

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The Democratic source also said the House bipartisan proposal would contain requirements for interior immigration law enforcement and stiffen rules over the electronic verification of worker employment. Texas Republican Rep. John Carter, one of the seven representatives working on the House's immigration bill, told reporters on Capitol Hill that "anybody who thinks you can totally secure the southern border has never been to the southern border."

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"I've been down there all my life. I'm telling you, you can build a 40 foot wall and put machine guns on it and you can't secure the southern border. There's too much wild country," Carter said.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told an audience at a town meeting in Virginia on Tuesday night that despite the $46 billion the Senate bill allotted for border enforcement, it still overlooked the need for border agents in the "interior of our country", according to ABC News.

Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., voiced a sentiment similar to that expressed by many House Republicans in an interview with the Washington Post, when he said that any bill that results in citizenship for the undocumented was a "nonstarter", calling it "patently unfair" to those trying to "do it the legal way."