As moderates in the Senate urged their leader to commit to bipartisan immigration reform, on Tuesday, conservatives in the House of Representatives pushed their own leaders to take a very different stance on the issue.
A powerful group of over 150 Republicans, known as the Republican Study Committee (RSC), will announce that it has voted in favor of supporting an immigration bill developed by hard-line conservatives. The group intends to try and force a vote, setting the stage for a showdown on the issue between the House of Representatives and the Senate. The RSC’s steering committee, which consists of almost two dozen Republicans, voted to back the bill, which would also see an extension to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
The committee has warned Republican leaders not to try to cut a deal over immigration with Democrats behind the backs of conservatives. In a statement, the committee said that the Securing America’s Future Act is the best framework in which to resolve the deferred action issue, while also increasing interior immigration and strengthening border security and that it is essential for the bill to be given a standalone floor vote eventually.
The move comes after the smaller conservative group, the House Freedom Caucus, gained a commitment for the bill to be whipped by their leadership in return for voting for government funding. But the efforts could cause further complications for the attempt to get Congress to reach a compromise on the issue.