Immigration Reform Executive Action Update: House Speaker John Boehner 'Absolutely' Confident GOP Can Support Immigration Reform
Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, has yet to introduce the U.S. Senate's bipartisan immigration legislation to the House, but he revealed the Republican Party could support immigration reform.
During an interview on ABC's "This Week," Boehner told George Stephanopoulos that immigration legislation couldn't be voted on until the southern U.S. border receives better security. Boehner said he thought immigration would have been passed this year, but it hasn't.
"We had a flood of children coming across the border once again proving that no good immigration bill can pass until we have real border security," Boehner said. "Big things in Washington take bipartisan majorities. Issue of immigration, only way to do it, and frankly the right way to do it, is to do it in a broad bipartisan way."
Asked if he could convince the Republican Party to be part of a bipartisan immigration bill, Boehner said, "Absolutely."
"I said the day after the 2012 election it was time to do immigration reform. I meant it then and I mean it today," Boehner said.
An unaired segment of the Boehner interview included his thoughts on President Barack Obama's potential immigration executive action. As Latin Post reported, Obama said he will issue an executive action on immigration after the November midterm elections following recommendations from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice.
"That would poison the well," Boehner said of a potential Obama executive order. "And I've told the president this directly: if you want to get immigration reform done, and you want to get it right, don't do things that will poison the well."
Obama said his executive action would be based on the inaction by Congress, namely the House of Representatives. The Senate passed "S.744 - Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act" in June 2013, which included cosponsors of Republican lawmakers such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. The Senate immigration bill received the support of Obama.
"The good news is we have bipartisan support for [immigration reform]. We have a Senate bill that would accomplish that," Obama said in early September. "The House Republicans refused to do it, and what I said to them was 'If you do not act on something that's so common sense that has you got labor, business, evangelicals, law enforcement, you got folks across the board supporting it, then I'm going to look for all the legal authorities that I have to act.'"