Congress

House Republican leaders are giving their support to a limited path to legal status for some illegal immigrants, in a move Democrats said could open the door to a deal on comprehensive immigration legislation.

Instead, it said immigrants living here illegally could remain and live legally if they pass background checks, pay fines and back taxes, learn to speak English and understand U.S. civics, and can support themselves without access to welfare.

But GOP leaders made clear that border security must be improved first.

"None of this can happen before specific enforcement triggers have been implemented," the document said.

Nevertheless, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a big advocate for immigrant legislation on the Senate side, said the announcement could smooth the way for a deal on legislation. The Senate passed an immigration bill last year.

"While these standards are certainly not everything we would agree with, they leave a real possibility that Democrats and Republicans, in both the House and Senate, can in some way come together and pass immigration reform that both sides can accept. It is a long, hard road but the door is open," he said. Read more about House GOP leaders back limited path to legal status for illegal immigrants

This could get ugly.

Thursday at 4:30pm in Cambridge, Maryland, Speaker John Boehner will unveil an outline of the party's immigration stance to rank-and-file members that includes “legal status” for millions of illegal immigrants.

Boehner hand-selected members to help lead the discussion, including California Rep. Jeff Denham, the first Republican to endorse the House Democrats' immigration bill.

But as much as Boehner is dreaming of a big, bipartisan immigration deal – senior GOP officials say they are surprised just how much the Ohio Republican is “leaning in” on the issue – top immigration hawks are themselves ready to raise hell.

“We’re going to have a very heavy discussion on illegal immigration,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told Breitbart News, adding that Boehner's critics have organized a plan to “speak as aggressively and loudly and articulately as we can in opposing this nonsense of amnesty for 10-20 million illegals which would cause great harm to the country and destroy the Republican Party.”

The meeting is momentous enough that Senator Jeff Sessions flouted congressional protocol, hand-delivering anti-amnesty talking points to members ahead of the closed-door session.

Boehner has been carefully working on the issue with the help of a new top immigration aide, Rebecca Tallent, who was formerly Senator John McCain's top amnesty lieutenant.

The surprise hire came in December, when immigration reform was widely considered on life support. Now insiders mark the move as the beginning of Boehner's renewed push.

“He wouldn't have brought her on – he didn't do this for like, a PR thing. Whose he getting good PR from? He wouldn't have brought her on unless he really thought that this was a problem that we need to deal with. And she wouldn't have come on board unless she thought that this was real,” Rep. Mario Diaz Balart told Breitbart News.

Tallent has been helping craft immigration “principles” to be unveiled today in secret.

“I haven’t seen the principles at all,” said Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma. Lankford, as House Policy Committee Chair, is the fifth highest-ranking member of the House.

Today, after weeks of anticipation, all will be out in the open – at least inside the immigration showdown at Cambridge. Read more about Showdown: Boehner to reveal conservative immigration 'principals,' conservatives ready to rumble

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said Sunday evening during an exclusive appearance on Breitbart News Sunday with Stephen K. Bannon that House GOP leadership’s push to grant amnesty to America’s illegal aliens this year could jeopardize Republicans in the 2014 elections.

“A poll just showed that just 3 percent of Americans consider immigration a top priority," Sessions said. "So now we’re going to take an issue that divides the Republicans, that is not good for working Americans, and we’re going to alter the definition of this election from an overreaching central government and Obamacare and taxes and regulations to a controversial issue like [immigration]? I think it would be, from a purely political point of view, wrong.”

Sessions said the Chamber of Commerce wing of the Republican party had lost all bearing on what the American people actually want.

“They’re using rhetoric and logic from groups that are not in touch with reality,” Sessions said. “They’re not talking to average working Americans who we are elected to serve. We’re not here elected to serve just big business. We’re here to serve all Americans, and there’s no doubt about it that consistently data shows this immigration plan that would grant amnesty to 11 million and double the annual flow of workers into the country would hammer working Americans so we’re going to try to get out some information again this week on that."

"But it’s so important that you cannot deny that a surge in supply of any product, including labor, pulls down the value of that product," he explained. "It just goes against all logic, unless our libertarian friends want to deny the free market."

The Alabama Senator has been focusing his criticisms on the deleterious economic impacts of increased immigration, especially how it could depress wages for low-income workers. The issue, Sessions said, is a simple matter of supply and demand, estimating that as many as 40 million additional people could enter the workforce following a bill like the Senate “Gang of Eight” proposal.

“It’s real easy to understand,” Sessions said. “11 million people would be given legal status under the [Senate] bill. They say ‘don’t worry about them because they’re already working in America.’ Not so, really. Many of them may be working part time helping their brother-in-law in a restaurant or on a subcontracting basis, but once given legal status and a Social Security card—which would happen immediately—they’ll be able to compete for the jobs like truck driving and forklift operators, Wal-Mart, government jobs too."

"So that’ll be 11 million. Then you got 4 million in a backlog. That makes 15, as it would advance them," he continued. "Then It would increase 50 percent over the next 10 years to instead of 1 million a year to 1.5 million a year. That would be another 15 million, so that’s 30. Then there’s a guest worker program.”

Sessions said right now, Republicans’ negotiations with Democrats have focused on trading amnesty for an increased labor supply that Chamber of Commerce clients and other business interests want.”And let me tell you what, it really shocks me and it’s why I’m so worried about what the House is doing this week with their ‘principles,’” Sessions said. “Good Republicans in the House seem to believe that if they go into negotiations with Democrats, their [the Republicans’] goal is to increase the guest worker program even more. If they can get the guest worker immigration status and increase it even more, they will give even more generous amnesty. That’s been the state of a good bit of the negotiations, amazingly.”

Bannon asked Sessions if he believes that an immigration plan being pushed by the establishment would “throw the rule of law out the window and that we won’t ever be able to recover that as a country,” to which Sessions replied he did.

“I do, I do, because do you remember the first time in 1986?” Sessions said. “You’re too young, but I remember it, and they promised it would never be done again. One time amnesty. So, if we do it a second time now, do you hear anybody promising we will never have amnesty again for people who enter the country illegally? We will have eviscerated any moral power, any integrity in the law."

"We have the Secretary of Homeland Security who handles Border Patrol and ICE officers who I’ve worked with in the past as a prosecutor—I was a US Attorney for 12 years, I know how it works out in the real world," he continued. "So he says the people who came here illegally have earned their citizenship. My goodness, what does that say to his officers who have taken an oath to enforce the laws of the United States?”

Sessions said GOP proponents of amnesty are suffering from one part elitism, one part misguided political theory.

“I think part of it is an elitism,” Sessions said. “There’s some very powerful financial sources out there, business leaders who are very generous who are very committed to expanding immigration. Hopefully that’s not a factor in people making a decision."

"And then you’ve got this really weird theory that somehow if we give up our principles, this is going to gain Hispanic votes?" he stated. "We want to get Hispanic votes. We want to gain their support. But think about if we reduced this illegal flow and we did not expand the immigration flow, we would begin to see wages rise and Hispanics that are here would be the ones to benefit the most."

"Well, it’s African Americans who are being hammered the most by this actually," Sessions claimed. "I hate to be that frank about it, but it’s absolutely hammering working African Americans especially young men who desperately need jobs. Professor [George] Borjas at Harvard said it’s a factor in the rising incarceration rate of African Americans. I’m sure that it is. We’ve got to get real about this. We don’t live in some theoretical world where we can do open borders.”

Sessions rounded out the interview with a call for Americans to contact their congressmen and urge to oppose this plan and with a warning about how serious a matter this is for the country moving forward.

“The danger in the House is that you’ve got overwhelming Democratic support,” Sessions said. “It’s virtually unanimous. It won’t take many Republicans to have a majority. Then if it comes to the Senate, you have a substantial Democratic majority in the Senate who you know voted for it last time. We’ll just be in a very bad situation."

"What’s happening in the House right now could well determine our future with regard to immigration," he explained. "We believe in immigration. But we’re a nation of laws and the system that we choose and the number of people we admit should serve the legitimate interests of the American people, not special businesses and not people who just like to come here when we’re not able to accept them."

"That’s the challenge in the House," Sessions stated. "This is a critical time in history. I just hope they’ll rise to the challenge and give this a lot more thought rather than rushing into it right now.” Read more about EXCLUSIVE - Sessions: House Leadership Immigration Push Could Imperil GOP in 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said Friday that a Republican Party that ignores the nation's Hispanics and balks at immigration overhaul does so at its political peril as Republicans pressured the House GOP to act this year....

While the document has given new hope to immigration proponents, opposition still remains strong in the House, where many Republicans fear granting amnesty to those here illegally, worry about the political fallout in their districts and oppose giving President Barack Obama a long-sought legislative victory.... Read more about Bloomberg: Immigration reform key to GOP future

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are preparing to unveil their own broad template for overhauling the nation’s immigration system this week, potentially offering a small opening for President Obama and congressional Democrats to pass bipartisan legislation before the end of the year.

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and other Republican leaders are expected to release a one-page statement of immigration principles this week at their annual retreat in Cambridge, Md., according to aides with knowledge of the plan. The document is expected to call for border security and enforcement measures, as well as providing a path to legal status — but not citizenship — for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, the aides said.

The Republican effort comes as Mr. Obama is expected to push once again for an overhaul of the immigration system in his State of the Union address Tuesday, and as lawmakers from both parties describe immigration as one of the few potential areas for bipartisan compromise before the end of the current Congress.

“The principles they lay out I’m sure won’t satisfy everybody,” Michael R. Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, said at an immigration forum on Friday. But, he added, “if we can make some compromises here for the good of the country, I think we have a very good chance for the first time in a long time of changing something that is really damaging all of us.”

The Senate, led by Democrats, passed a broad bipartisan measure in June to overhaul immigration that included a 13-year path to citizenship. But the legislation stalled in the Republican-controlled House, where some of the party’s more conservative members oppose any form of legal status as “amnesty.”

But heading into the three-day Republican retreat, even some of the most ardent conservatives say consensus is forming around an immigration package that would include several separate bills on border security; a clampdown against the hiring of undocumented workers; expanded guest-worker programs; a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants brought to the country as children; and a path to legal status for undocumented workers with family ties to citizens or employer sponsors.

The White House has said it wants a path to citizenship for both children and adults in any new immigration legislation.

“The president’s pathway to citizenship is a stumbling block,” said Representative Andy Harris, a conservative Republican who represents the Maryland district that will host the retreat. “But legalization with no path to citizenship can gain some votes.”

Representative Peter T. King, a Republican of New York and a longtime critic of proposals to change the immigration system, said it was significant that both the third-ranking Republican in the House, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, and the Judiciary Committee chairman, Representative Robert W. Goodlatte of Virginia, had voiced support in recent days for legal status for some immigrants living in the country illegally — and have taken very little heat for their remarks on either side of the aisle.

But the divisions that have slowed progress in the House have not been entirely mended. Representative Raúl R. Labrador, a Republican of Idaho and once a leading immigration negotiator in the House, said it would be a mistake to push forward.

“The president has shown he’s not willing to work with us on immigration,” Mr. Labrador said. “It’s not worth having a party divided when we have so many issues we can come together on.”

On Thursday, aides to House conservatives who oppose the leadership’s plan gathered in the office of Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and a fierce opponent of the immigration push, to plot a strategy to torpedo it.

Critics worry that House Republican leaders and Senate Democrats are essentially negotiating a final deal, bypassing formal House-Senate negotiations, where conservatives had hoped to derail the process. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, one of the Democratic architects of the Senate bill, said: “One thing is certain, just as with the budget, at some point both the House and the Senate will have to sit down and resolve all the contentious issues.” Read more about House Republicans to Offer Broad Immigration Plan

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USCIS (a branch of DHS) says:  “In the past decade, E-Verify participation has increased 400 percent. E-Verify is now used nationwide at more than 1.5 million hiring sites, with more than 1,400 new employers joining each week. Additionally, E-Verify is one of the federal government’s highest-rated services for customer satisfaction.”

There is a searchable database of employers using E-Verify at http://www.uscis.gov/e-verify/about-program/e-verify-employers-search-tool. Searches can be filtered for name of employer, or state, city, etc. A search for all Oregon employers shows that over 3,000 employers in the state are now participating. You can search by name of your town to see which employers locally are using E-Verify.

OFIR NOTE:  Please make every attempt to support businesses using E-Verify and tell them why you chose them over a competitor.  As with anything, please do your own research about the business to be certain you are making the right choice. Read more about Half a Million Employers Now Enrolled in E-Verify