Immigration Reform Bill Opposed By Republicans Who Cite Local Unpopularity Despite Broad National Support

Republican representatives who have shown themselves largely unwilling to negotiate over the comprehensive immigration reform bill currently making its way through the Senate are facing a difficult choice: give a voice to their own constituents' distaste for the reform or act for the good of their party and respond to broader national pressures favoring the bill's passage. In an article published today, the Associated Press spoke to eight Republican members of the House of Representatives, who cited the bill's unpopularity in their districts in giving reasons for their own opposition to it. At the heart of that unpopularity is what representatives refer to as "amnesty" - one of the bill's central tenets, a provision offering a path to legal status and eventually citizenship to the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.

On NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that the GOP was in "a demographic death-spiral as a party" and gave his party no chance of winning the White House in 2016 if the Republicans were perceived as having blocked immigration reform from happening. "If we don't pass immigration reform, if we don't get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn't matter who you run in 2016," Graham said.

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In interviews with the Associated Press, some Republican representatives echoed the sense that efforts by their party to down the bill could spell irrelevance for them on the executive stage. But in staunchly conservative districts, constituents often have strong feelings about the path to citizenship. Polls on immigration reform which include "intensity measures" reflect that. A May ABC/Washington Post poll which indicated that 58 percent of Americans supported the path to citizenship (compared to 38 percent against it) noted that 23% of those who said they opposed the proposal could not "support a candidate for Congress who voted in favor of a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants."

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Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas), told the AP, "It's hard to argue with the polling they've been getting from the national level. I just don't experience it locally." Marchant, who has come out against the path to citizenship, said the proposal was "very unpopular in my district" - a suburb west of Dallas - and indicated that it would mean the enfranchisement of a demographic which would likely vote Democratic. "If you give the legal right to vote to 10 Hispanics in my district, seven to eight of them are going to vote Democrat."

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Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) indicated that Marchant's concern about localities' feelings on the reform applied across the House of Representatives.

"Every member in the House is looking at the immigration debate through a prism of what's of concern in their district," Boustany said.