Last September, President Trump announced an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA). Since that time, multiple courts have blocked Trump's move to end the program. Moreover, Congress has indicated that it is seeking to find a long-term solution for DACA recipients, though members are split on how to best handle the issue. If you've been wondering when Congress will vote on DACA, it looks like immigration votes could come as early as next week. However, these votes will likely be limited to two Republican-led bills on immigration. As the New York Times reported, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced on Tuesday evening that his chamber would be voting on immigration measures next week. Ryan's announcement came after a bipartisan measure called a discharge petition failed to get enough signatures to force a vote on more moderate immigration bills, including the DREAM Act and another bipartisan bill. Both bipartisan bills propose a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children (Dreamers), many of whom are DACA recipients. With the failure of the discharge petition, which was two signatures shy of the 218 required, these bipartisan measures will not be voted upon. Instead, only two comparatively conservative immigration bills will be put to the House floor for a vote, as opposed to all four measures. As Vox explained, one of these bills is a conservative measure sponsored by Bob Goodlatte of Virginia. The bill would give temporary status to DACA program recipients and diminish options for legal immigration. As the New York Times noted, this measure is backed by conservatives as well as by President Trump. The contents of the other bill, which has yet to be written, are more unclear. The bill is being referred to as a compromise bill and, according to Vox, is reportedly being written in accordance with a White House framework on immigration. This framework reportedly includes strengthening border security, diminishing legal immigration based on familial ties, ending the diversity lottery, and granting legal status to those brought to the United States as undocumented children. However, as Vox noted, lawmakers are still debating how exactly the components of this framework should be fleshed out in the bill. It seems that both Republican-led bills will offer some type of protection to Dreamers, though they will likely vary significantly in the protection that they do offer. As the New York Times noted, as the compromise bill is being drafted, one of the biggest questions will likely be whether or not to provide some type of path to citizenship for Dreamers, as the bipartisan bills propose. As the paper reported, citizenship pathways are often quite controversial in the Republican party, as more conservative members often perceive them as providing "amnesty" to undocumented immigrants. Thus, differing perceptions on citizenship pathways and other topics may influence whether Republicans are able to collectively support one immigration measure. Indeed, as the Chicago Tribune noted, there is some doubt as to whether either one of the immigration bills can pass the House next week. Moreover, as Reuters reported, even if a bill does pass, it must also secure support in the Senate, which would require Democratic votes. As Vox noted, the Senate has already voted against three different immigration bills, including one that was based on the aforementioned White House framework. Overall, the upcoming immigration votes could certainly carry high stakes. For Dreamers, the votes could contribute to determining their future status in the United States. For Republicans, any measure they do (or do not) pass will certainly be under scrutiny as the 2018 midterm elections approach. Needless to say, many will be observing to see how exactly the immigration debate unfolds in the House of Representatives next week.<doc-sep>(CNN) — Two more Republicans signed on to a measure that would force an immigration vote in the House just hours after Speaker Paul Ryan urged his colleagues not to in a closed-door meeting Wednesday. The momentum of the petition, paired with threats from conservatives to cause problems if the effort continues to move, prompted House leadership to summon both key moderate and conservative members to meet in Ryan’s offices with the full GOP leadership team Wednesday evening. But the issue remained far from resolved. The signatures of New York Rep. John Katko and Michigan Rep. David Trott on Wednesday brought the total to 20 Republicans supporting the move, five short of the number needed to force a vote if all Democrats sign on as well. The pitch from Ryan to his party colleagues at a meeting that morning as well as the evening huddles, as recounted by multiple lawmakers leaving the meeting, came as he faces an uprising from moderate GOP members who say time is running out for him to come up with a solution on immigration, adding they are tired of waiting for action. Texas Rep. Bill Flores paraphrased the speaker as telling Republicans in the morning to “quit messing around with the discharge petition” and that it’s “not a path to success.” “He just said a discharge petition is not a path to success if you really want to do something on immigration,” Flores told reporters. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy also weighed in. A source familiar with his remarks said McCarthy was quite serious in warning the conference about the effects the discharge petition could have on the midterms. Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo said he didn’t explicitly say the effort could threaten the House majority but did say “that it’s important for us to work as a team.” Other members and Flores said Ryan told his colleagues that he met with President Donald Trump the day before and that leadership and the White House were working on a plan that could ultimately pass both chambers of Congress and get the President’s signature. But he did not offer specifics, the lawmakers added. A group of moderate Republicans are backing a plan to bypass GOP leaders by forcing a floor vote on four competing bills to preserve the Obama-era DACA program, which protected young undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children. Trump has decided to end the program, though it’s currently tied up in the courts. The move, called a discharge petition, now has 20 Republican supporters. When Katko and Trott signed during the first vote series of the day – which is the main opportunity that lawmakers have to sign by hand the petition kept on the House floor – Republican petition backers, California’s Jeff Denham and Curbelo, were seen walking the floor, talking to members and each other. Both moderates and conservatives leaving the speaker’s offices in the evening said they had “productive” and good meetings, which included the top five House Republicans including Ryan, McCarthy and Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana. But both also insisted that nothing in the meetings changed their efforts. Moderates are still pursuing the discharge petition and conservatives are still threatening an unrelated farm bill to push for their preferred immigration bill, a hardline measure that lacks the votes to pass the House. Moderates included Reps. Denham; Curbelo; David Valdeo, R-California; Fred Upton, R-Michigan; and Will Hurd, R-Texas. Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart stopped by but couldn’t stay because he had committee obligations. The conservatives meeting were Freedom Caucus Members Reps. Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina; Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; and Scott Perry, R-Pennsylvania. 02:23 - Source: CNN Kelly: Undocumented immigrants lack skills to assimilate “It was a conversation, I’m not going to divulge all the details … but it was productive,” Curbelo said. “Clearly we have had a positive impact on our leadership and this institution because now this issue is being taken seriously and people are thinking through how something can be achieved.” “The next step is figuring out what the next step is,” Meadows said. Leadership called the meetings, members said. “The meeting was prompted when we got number 20 today and they know we’re continuing to make upward progress,” Upton said. Ryan in his weekly news conference earlier similarly did not offer specifics on the alternative immigration plan he is developing with the White House, saying his team is “working on it.” “Obviously we do not agree with discharge petitions. We think they’re a big mistake – they dis-unify our majority,” Ryan said. “We want to advance something that has a chance of going into law where the President would support it.” Inside his earlier meeting with the full conference, Ryan mostly spoke in broad strokes about the need to balance border security and other immigration policies, said Michigan Rep. John Moolenaar. CNN’s Lauren Fox, Daniella Diaz and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.<doc-sep>This image was removed due to legal reasons. The House Republican caucus has been stuck in an internal struggle over DACA and immigration for over a month, and a group of House GOP moderates tried to get a deal done with the Freedom Caucus that would prevent Dreamers from being deported. The moderates failed. Again. Advertisement Politico reports: The group of two-dozen Republicans from swing districts — who for weeks threatened to join with Democrats to codify the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Program — offered to include enhanced enforcement measures in legislation in order to secure an agreement. Conservatives are demanding added enforcement as part of any deal that includes pathway to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants who came here as children. Both sides met to discuss the issue at a 5:30 p.m. meeting in Speaker Paul Ryan’s office. Moderates have threatened to sign onto a discharge petition to force votes on bipartisan immigration bills that conservatives strongly oppose if they don’t get an agreement. “We have bill text,” Rep. Jeff Denham of California (pictured above), who led the discharge petition effort and represents a swing district in San Joaquin Valley, said as he walked into a meeting with conservatives. “I’m waiting to see if we all come together on it.” They didn’t. Late tonight, Speaker Paul Ryan announced that they had averted the discharge petition. Instead, they’ll vote on two bills next week: a previously announced vote on a right-wing bill that would limit legal immigration sponsored by Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte, and a compromise bill that Ryan and both sides haven’t even finished putting together yet. The discharge petition, which would have allowed GOP moderates and Democrats to bypass committee and bring a bill directly to the House floor, failed by two votes. Advertisement House conservatives reportedly mandated that any deal include an “E-verify” system and a more hardline asylum system, as if the one we have isn’t as ruthless enough as it is. According to Politico, some of the moderates are cool with tougher asylum standards but don’t want E-verify because the country needs day laborers to work on farms and in construction. How nice of them. Last week, the Des Moines Register reported that a former DACA recipient named Manuel Antonio Cano Pacheco—a teenager who came to the United States from Mexico when he was 3 and then was forced to go back to a country he’s never known—had been murdered just three weeks after he was deported. It’s no stretch to say his blood is on the hands of Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions, and Congress; without action as soon as possible, there’s going to be more like him.<doc-sep>
House Speaker Paul Ryan made a claim about the ongoing immigration fight in Congress during his weekly press conference that everyone knows isn’t true. “What we all agree is that the four pillars is a really good point to rally around,” Ryan said at a press conference Thursday about the White House’s four immigration policy demands. “We don’t have disagreement on those four pillars. What we are doing now is reaching consensus on how to address those four pillars.” There’s a big problem with that statement. It’s disconnected from the realities of his own Republican conference. Let me explain. The press conference took place after House Republicans gathered for a two-hour meeting to find a path forward on a legislative fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has been in legal limbo since President Trump’s administration announced it would sunset the program last year. Ryan’s read of the meeting was exceedingly positive, papering over the very real divisions that exist within the Republican caucus. “This is an issue that everything is complicated, everything is controversial,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) said when asked how much disagreement there is on Trump’s four pillars. “There is disagreement on everything.” For the past year, Republicans have been at an impasse over the future of DACA; moderates want to put the program protecting young undocumented immigrants into law, while conservatives have myriad demands around border security and restricting legal immigration. Inaction on the issue has pushed moderates to sign on to a discharge petition, along with Democrats, that with enough signatures would force several votes on a DACA fix. Ryan’s argument around the House’s immigration fight has been the same for the past year: The House should only pass something that can become law — that Trump will sign — and the path to doing that is through following the White House’s criteria. The discharge petition, Ryan argues, wouldn’t result in law. But there also isn’t consensus behind the White House’s proposal, which includes a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants who would qualify for DACA, funding for a border wall, an end to the diversity visa lottery, and curbing of family-based immigration, which would substantially gut legal immigration. Among the seven House Republicans Vox talked to after the meeting, moderates and conservatives, every single one confirmed that the conference cannot agree on whether the final immigration bill should include a path to citizenship. There’s debate whether legal status should be a special visa, citizenship, or something different altogether. Some hardline conservatives are uncomfortable with all of the above. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) told Vox there isn’t even consensus on what the four pillars are. Ryan seemed to confirm that in the same press conference, telling reporters, “The four pillars — you all know what they are — how we come together to decide what constitutes the four pillars is really what matters here.” And even if there were consensus behind an immigration bill on the White House’s four pillars, Ryan’s argument that the House should only pass something that can become law would break down. The Senate has voted on an immigration bill covering the four pillars. It failed. In fact, among the four immigration bills the Senate voted on, the White House-mirrored proposal got the least support. No one needs to explain to Ryan that for a bill to become a law, per the Constitution, it needs to also pass the Senate. What does he have to say about that? “If I sat around as speaker of the House and thought about what can the United States Senate do, we wouldn’t do anything,” Ryan said. “So we don’t spend our time thinking about votes in the Senate. We spend our time thinking about how we can get consensus here in the House Republican conference and getting bills through the House.” In other words, he doesn’t currently care if the compromise bill can become law. Thursday’s episode was a perfect encapsulation of where immigration talks sit in Congress. House Republicans are at just as much of an impasse as they have been for two decades. They can’t decide on whether young undocumented immigrants should be granted a path to citizenship, or guest worker status, or even legal status at all. Ryan is trying to put a shine on a messy fight — and he can’t keep his message straight.