There’s a lot of tea leaf reading going on in DC these days trying to figure out what’s happening on immigration reform on the House side. But the news of the last few days is making me more optimistic that reform legislation is coming to the House. Here are a few things we recently learned:

1. Speaker Boehner says he’s “hell-bent” on accomplishing reform this year. Given the chance to backtrack (like he did in January), Boehner largely held his ground today. While saying a lot depended on the President, he didn’t move from his stated goal of moving a bill in 2014.

2. Republican Joe Barton is working on a legalization and guest worker bill that he plans on introducing in the next month or so.

3. Congresswoman McMorris-Rodgers, the fourth highest ranking Republican, predicted reform legislation would be brought to a vote in August.

4. Senate Immigration Subcommittee Chair Chuck Schumer, the Democrat who ran the show in the Senate, said it was an open secret that legislation would pass this year.

5. Prospective GOP presidential candidates Jeb Bush, Paul Ryan and Rand Paul all had positive things to say about passing immigration legislation.

6. Republican Senator Mike Lee predicted the House would take up piecemeal immigration lawmaking this year.

7. Conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin persuasively laid out ten reasons why the GOP would pass reform legislation this year.

Finally, I’ve also noticed a bit more panic from previously cocky anti-immigrant pundits who are now expressing greater fear that the Republicans are about to get their act together on immigration.

 

 

Latest posts by Greg Siskind (see all)