Boehner rules out immigration reform this year
Washington (CNN) - If there were any doubts that comprehensive immigration reform efforts were dead on Capitol Hill this year, House Speaker John Boehner eliminated them on Wednesday.
Boehner repeated his long standing opposition to the Senate-passed immigration bill and his pledge the House would never vote on it, but he went a step further, drawing a bright line: "I'll make clear we have no intention ever of going to conference on the Senate bill."
Last week the third ranking House Republican, GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-California, told immigration reform advocates that there wasn't enough time left this year for the House to take up immigration reform. The House is in session 15 days between now and the end of the year.
After Republicans lost the presidential election in 2012 and Hispanic voters voted overwhelmingly for President Obama, Boehner said it was time for Congress to pass major immigration reforms.
"I think a comprehensive approach is long overdue. And I’m confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all," Boehner said in an interview with ABC News the week after the election.
Facing sharp divisions inside his conference on the issue, Boehner insists he still wants action but says any legislation has to be done in pieces.
"I want us to deal with this issue but I want to deal with it in a common sense step by step way," he said Wednesday.
A series of targeted immigration bills have passed the House Judiciary Committee - mostly focused on border security and enforcement - but GOP leaders have not scheduled any floor votes on any of them.
A significant bloc of House conservatives is adamantly opposed to any measure that provides a path to citizenship or legal status for the 11 million undocumented workers in the United States. So far, none of the House GOP proposals addresses that issue, but opponents worry that any negotiation with the Senate would ratchet up pressure on House Republicans to deal with questions of citizenship.
Boehner's statement Wednesday declaring no talks with the Senate on its bill was designed to put those concerns to rest.
The Speaker brushed aside a question of whether House GOP leaders were avoiding the divisive debate on immigration reform to focus on problems with the implementation of Obamacare.
"This is about trying to do this in a way that the American people and our members can absorb," Boehner said, adding immigration reform is too complicated to rush.
"There are hundreds of issues involved in dealing with immigration reform, and we've got to deal with these in a common sense way where our members understand what we're doing and their constituents understand."
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What a surprise. It's what the American people want, and what would be good for the country, so Boehner and the rest of the GOP losers are automatically against it. Considering Boehner has done NOTHING else so far this year, and he's ruled this out, how exactly is he earning his generous pay and benefits package?
Agree with Boehner, or not, I have an issue with the process. The speaker of the house can say "no, we are not doing anything about it", and it doesn't matter if the rest of the house wants to vote, it doesn't matter if the rest of the country wants a vote – it ain't gonna happen. The house should be able to override the speaker, otherwise the speaker is nothing more than a dictator. Heck, even the president (the closest we position we have to a monarch) can be overridden by Congress and/or Supreme court
Wow! Really bonehead bhoener?!
This is why we need FILIBUSTER REFORM NOW!
ASAP!
PRONTO!
SCHNELL SCHNELL!
ENDELE`!
So did the Senate READ the bill? Better to take our time with important matters of the state as opposed to ram-rodding it in and trying to scramble to fix it afterwards.
No Rush and another year goes by. However shutdown accomplished a lot.
The republicans don't want to give Obama any legislative victories. Expect to see nothing accomplished until whenever a republican becomes president with a republican House and Senate and then lookout, they'll destroy whatever is left of the country by then.
Huh. The party of NO says NO. Why waste news space on this? We certainly don't need to see another pic of teary eyed Bonehead.
"After Republicans lost the presidential election in 2012 and Hispanic voters voted overwhelmingly for President Obama, Boehner said it was time for Congress to pass major immigration reforms."
The only problem is...that Boehner is a liar who never keeps his word.
The Progressive values are America's values – the conservative's have repeatedly rejected America and it's now time we reject them.
Im still waiting for the great wall to be built with 100yds of land mines in front and behind the wall.
So can't they at least start working on it? They don't have to vote on it this year, but they could work on it now so that they can take the vote early next year.
Just another example of the Racist Republican party....
The party of "NO NEGOTIATING" has helped create this current situation.
So, Immigration Holocaust will go on...
Great, now how about we enforce our laws, keep illegal aliens from crossing our borders, and send those packing who are not here legally.
Good for JB!. No, the Republicans will not support giving status to tens of millions of lawbreakers. Not when we have millions that are unemployed, many of whom NEED the jobs being taken by the illegal invaders
surprise surprise, they only care about THEIR agenda and not whats best for this country.
The GOP reminds me a lot of the No Nothing Party. Look it up on the Internet and you will see what I mean.
HEADLINE: Boehner: No immigration reform
ARTICE:
"I want us to deal with this issue but I want to deal with it in a common sense step by step way," he said Wednesday.
"This is about trying to do this in a way that the American people and our members can absorb," Boehner said, adding immigration reform is too complicated to rush.
I agree he should allow all the Senate bills to be voted on, and the Senate should allow all of the bills that have passed the House to be voted on, but why the sensationalism, why not just post facts instead of misleading headlines.
Translation We don't want any of your stinkin' Hispanic votes come election day!
Take a look around. The libatards are going down via Obummercare. Mr. Boehner is doing the right thing. The last thing we need right now is 15 million new democrat voters. Look for republican rule for many years to come. Oh yea!
"Any immigration reform should start with Aliens returning to their native country and applying for legal status "
OK, why don't you go out and find all 12M of them and let us know when you're done, so we can commence spending a few trillion dollars on creating the massive police state apparatus that would be required to "round them all up and send them all back where they came from." To make it easier on you, you can even skip the white ones, since we know it's just the brown ones you're concerned about.
What Boehner means by dealing with it with common sense is whatever the 30 nut bags in the House tell me to do about it.
"No surprise from the Party of No, who will not do anything beneficial for the American people."
Certainly not while a Dem is POTUS and certainly not unless they can take all the credit for it.
Why do they have a picture of Lord Voldemort heading this article?