Free Republic

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...

If President Obama's Affordable Care Act is on shaky ground after its disastrous website rollout, enrollment woes and dropped coverage for many Americans, California could be the epicenter of doubt. A new statewide poll finds lukewarm support for the law known as Obamacare, with 50 percent of Golden State voters favoring it and only one-third, 33 percent, strongly favoring it. The showing was so lukewarm in such a solid Democratic state that the director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll, Dan Schnur, said this: Even Californians who are very strongly supportive of health care reform are very measured in...

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Friday there still is a possibility of immigration reform this year. “I think that, in fact, the idea that either a comprehensive approach or a multi-tiered approach is not going to happen by the end of the year, I don’t think that that’s necessarily true,” Priebus told Bloomberg’s Al Hunt. “I think it can happen and I think people like Paul Ryan and others still want something like that to happen,” Priebus said. -snip- Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who helped craft the Senate’s immigration bill, said Thursday the window for passing immigration reform...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) will meet with President Obama at the White House Thursday afternoon to plot strategy for passing comprehensive immigration reform. McCain said Obama requested the meeting, which comes at a time political momentum for immigration reform is flagging. McCain and Obama need to shore up the support of wavering allies such as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has backed off the push to overhaul the nation's immigration laws in a 1,200-page comprehensive bill. Rubio has said the Senate should not try to merge its comprehensive bill with a piecemeal measure coming out of the House. McCain's ally,...

Southern California Congressman Darrell Issa is rumored to be cooking up his own immigration reform proposal. It’s reportedly designed to find some middle ground in the contentious debate over providing legal status to the more than 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. -snip- The details of Issa’s plan for immigration reform are still scarce, and his office didn’t respond to numerous requests for an interview. But the plan would reportedly include a six-year period of temporary relief from deportation for undocumented immigrants. During that time, they would be expected to find a legal way to stay here or leave....

Business leaders on Tuesday helped mobilize an army of advocates to pressure House Republicans into taking action on immigration reform. -snip- They also discussed how to hone their immigration reform message to appeal to Republicans on religious grounds. -snip- said Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition. “Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.” Estle said he has met with conservative lawmakers and found that a religiously based message resonated with them. “We are trying to continue to point back to what the Bible has to say about welcoming the...

More than 600 conservative-friendly officials and activists are descending on Capitol Hill Tuesday for a lobbying blitz targeting a wide range of House lawmakers, primarily Republicans, on immigration reform. The effort spans lawmakers from about 120 congressional districts in about 40 states, said Josh Breisblatt, the advocacy and policy associate for the National Immigration Forum. It’s meant to make the conservative case for immigration reform to lawmakers by bringing business experts, religious leaders and law enforcement officials to the Hill. -snip- “Failure to come up now with a solution to immigration reform is a sign of weakness, not of strength,”...

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is planning to release legislation next week that would provide legal status for six years to undocumented immigrants in the United States, he said in an interview Wednesday. Issa, an influential Republican who leads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, described the legislation as a “come-from-the-shadows” effort that would allow the government to do a full accounting of those who are in the U.S. illegally. Immigrants in this new status would be able to travel to their native country while on this temporary visa, he said.

As I said on a recent podcast, the GOP message is going to become "fix" ObamaCare. Here's Marco "Amnesty" Rubio. "The widespread problems with the ObamaCare website are generating a new backlash in Congress, with Sen. Marco Rubio planning to introduce legislation that would delay the health law's individual mandate until the technical failures are addressed. The Florida senator discussed the plan Tuesday morning in an interview with Fox News. He said it would be "prudent" to delay the requirement on individuals to buy health insurance -- set to kick in early next year -- until users can consistently access...

Carney announces that now the CR and Debt Ceiling have gone Obama's way, the president is putting "immigration reform" back on the front burner. "It's the right thing for America."

Once the fiscal crisis has been resolved, President Barack Obama is going to push for immigration reform, he told the Los Angeles affiliate of Spanish-language network Univision on Tuesday. Obama, who largely managed to hold on to office on the backs of Hispanic voters, has long looked to easing the plight of the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants, but other issues have kept coming in the way during his second term.

President Obama vowed Tuesday that he would pursue an immigration reform vote in the House the "day after" Congress reached an agreement to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. "Once that’s done, you know, the day after -- I’m going to be pushing to say, call a vote on immigration reform," Obama told Univision's Los Angeles affiliate. "And if I have to join with other advocates and continue to speak out on that, and keep pushing, I’m going to do so because I think it’s really important for the country. And now is the time to do it."