Immigration Reform 2014: House Republicans To Unveil ‘Statement Of Principles’ Backing Legal Status But Not Citizenship For Undocumented

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that House Republican leaders will present a one-page “statement of principles” on immigration reform to fellow GOP representatives at a three-day party retreat starting on Wednesday. The document, which spells out for the first time the basic tenets House Republicans will pursue as they draft and push legislation on the issue, reportedly extends eligibility for legal status to some of the nation’s 11.7 million undocumented immigrants, but stops short of offering the “special path to citizenship” offered by the bipartisan Senate legislation which House Republicans rejected this summer.

That Senate plan would have put an estimated 8 million undocumented immigrants on a 10-year path to a green card. After another three years, they would be eligible for citizenship. The Republican statement of principles comes out against providing such a “special pathway” -- except in the case of “Dreamers,” young undocumented immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. The Times writes that the document quotes House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who in a 2013 speech said it was “time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home,” calling the precept that children not be punished for the mistakes of their parents “one of the great founding principles of our country.”

The document also criticizes an immigration system which it says educates the world’s best and brightest students but subsequently fails to keep them in the US by making it too hard for them to get green cards. It also recommends that benefits for the undocumented hinge on unspecified triggers relating to US-Mexico border control, and calls for Republicans to insist that current immigration laws be enforced before any unauthorized immigrants are granted legal status. The latter is a reference to House GOP anger over memos from President Obama and former heads of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs which establish priorities in the apprehension, detention and prosecution of certain unauthorized immigrants.