Michael McCaul opposes immigration talks
A key House Republican said Wednesday that he was urging his leadership to back off any formal negotiations with the Senate on immigration reform, reflecting a growing refusal from the GOP to reconcile the Gang of Eight legislation with any immigration bill that the House may pass.
Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, has been advocating for a bipartisan border-security bill that cleared his panel with unanimous support in May. That bill has lagged on the way to the House floor since, but McCaul indicated that his legislation isn’t meant to be a jumping-off point for broader discussions on overhauling the nation’s immigration laws.
And McCaul said he has relayed that message to the chamber’s top Republican — Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) — directly.
“I am not gonna go down the road of conferencing with the Senate [comprehensive immigration reform] bill,” McCaul said on conservative radio host Laura Ingraham’s show Wednesday. “And I told Boehner that he needs to stand up and make that very clear that we are not going to conference with the Senate on this. We’re not going to conference with the Senate, period.
“I am not pushing for immigration reform, I’ve been against amnesty my entire career,” McCaul continued. “I’m just interested in getting the security piece done. And we have to do that, first and foremost.”
A handful of conservatives in the House Republican Conference have said for several months that they would oppose going to a conference committee with the Senate over immigration, going as far as warning that they would vote against any reform bill on the floor to deny it the votes it needs to pass. But that opposition appears more fervent now, particularly after a fiscal battle this month that left House Republicans bruised: Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), who has worked on immigration reform, has said it would be “crazy” for his party to negotiate with Democrats after the shutdown fight.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), one of the Senate bill’s authors and arguably its most valuable conservative backer, also distanced himself this week from the legislation he helped write and threw his support behind the House Republicans’ piecemeal approach to immigration reform. His office has said any House-Senate conference committee should limit its scope to whatever the House passes.
McCaul also said he was invited to the White House to discuss immigration with President Barack Obama on Tuesday, but he declined. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who has been working for years on immigration legislation, had also been slated to head to the White House — but that meeting was abruptly cancelled with no clear reason.
“I saw it as a political trap,” McCaul said of a meeting with Obama.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters earlier Wednesday that those meetings didn’t happen Tuesday because of “some genuine scheduling challenges on both ends.”
“But we’re going to continue to be in touch with House Republicans,” Earnest continued. “And whether that is a meeting with the president or a meeting at the staff level, we’re going to continue to solicit ideas from House Republicans about how we can move this ball forward.”
Still, those advocating for a sweeping comprehensive bill got some good news Wednesday when a third House GOP lawmaker broke ranks to co-sponsor Democratic immigration legislation that the party has been circulating to pressure Republicans.
Rep. David Valadao, a freshman Republican from California whose district is 70 percent Latino, said the move was a way to bolster his message: “Addressing immigration reform in the House cannot wait.”
“I am serious about making real progress and will remain committed to doing whatever it takes to repair our broken immigration system,” Valadao said in a statement.
