Republican leaders in the House of Representatives face another week of party in-fighting over immigration even as they are promised a vote on a compromise bill, brokered between leaders, moderates, conservatives, and the White House in the hope of creating a bill to win 218 votes from the 235 House Republicans.
But, leaders were still short of achieving that goal at the end of last week, according to NPR sources. The divide has not yet been bridged, resulting in accusations that party leaders are out of touch with their conference members. Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, postponed a scheduled vote to allow for more negotiation time but the delay may only extend and worsen the fight.
On Thursday, Ryan told reporters that the aim of voting on the bill was to prevent the use of the discharge petition to force the House to vote on four other immigration bills, which are radically different in nature. Ryan says that, if passed, the compromise bill would have a greater chance of passing into law and being signed by President Donald Trump. But, on Friday, Trump undercut that message by asserting that the process was a waste of time because the Democratic Party were ‘playing games’ over the issue.
Conservatives have been further frustrated by the fight over the compromise bill as they believe their immigration proposal, rejected last week, was deliberately undermined by Ryan to push the leadership’s own measure.