Ryan sets House vote on GOP immigration bill

Published 8:56 am Wednesday, June 27, 2018

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul Ryan scheduled a long-awaited showdown vote on a broad Republican immigration bill for Wednesday, but is showing little confidence that the package will survive.

Underscoring the legislation’s weak prospects in his GOP-run chamber, Ryan, R-Wis., declined to answer questions Tuesday about a separate, narrow measure Republicans are privately discussing. It would focus on the issue that has grabbed public attention in recent days: the Trump administration’s separation of migrant children from their parents when families are caught crossing the border without authorization.

“If that doesn’t succeed, then we’ll cross that bridge,” Ryan told reporters about his preference to focus on trying to pass the broader bill. “But the last thing I want to do is undercut a vote on what is a great consensus bill.”

Email newsletter signup

Many conservatives are preparing to vote against the wider ranging bill because it would provide a chance for citizenship for many immigrants who arrived illegally in the U.S. as children. They have blasted that provision as “amnesty,” and the emerging, narrower bill would give them a chance to show they are addressing family separation without risking the wrath of hard-right voters.

The broader measure would also stop the Homeland Security Department from separating migrant families and provide $25 billion for President Donald Trump’s border wall and other security measures. Democrats are expected to solidly oppose that bill, which is a compromise between GOP moderates and conservatives.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., weighed in from across the Capitol, criticizing Trump for lacking a process for bringing families back together. Trump signed an executive order last week reversing his own administration policy of separating families, but many children remain apart from their parents.

“This administration needs to present a plan ASAP of how to unify the kids and how to deal with border. They have no plan,” Schumer said.

Ryan praised the compromise GOP bill.

“What we have here is the seeds of consensus,” he said. He predicted it would be the basis for legislation that eventually becomes law, “hopefully now but if not, later.”

He also accused Democrats of favoring a return to the previous “catch and release” policy under which immigrants being prosecuted were released into the U.S. until their court dates. Under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, more migrants are being prosecuted and therefore detained.

Ryan said Democrats would in effect “tell the world, ‘You can just come to this country, we’re not going to have closed borders.’”