One month after President Obama issued executive actions altering the landscape of the immigration system in the U.S., Republicans in Congress are looking to respond with immigration legislation of their own.

According to various reports, such as the Wall Street Journal, the GOP, which took control of the Senate in the November midterm elections to win both the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, is looking to get a series of legislative bills geared towards making changes to current immigration laws ready as the new Republican Congress gets ready to be sworn in during February.

Republicans went on the attack last month after President Obama announced his initiation of executive actions that prevented the deportation of roughly four million immigrants in the U.S. House Speaker John Boehner warned days after the midterm elections that Obama would "poison the well" if he went ahead with unilateral actions without the approval of Congress, and such criticism has continued, the Washington Post reported.

However, Republicans have faced their own share of criticism from immigration advocates such as Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), who accused Republicans earlier this month of "getting in the way of immigration reform" at an information session in Los Angeles, according to the New York Times. Conversely, new polls conducted by Pew Research and Gallup over the month indicated that most Latinos support the immigration actions taken by Obama, which could set the tone for a nasty political backlash from the Latino electorate during the 2016 presidential election if the Republicans take any negative actions on immigration reform.

In that vein, Republican leaders in both houses have stated that they want to use their time in the incoming Congress to pass legislation on immigration, with some legislators on the GOP side making it known that they want to increase security along the Southwest border of the U.S. However, whether or not those talked-about bills will have any backing is something that Republican legislators have yet to give a strong indication toward.

Legislators in the Homeland Security Committee are looking at creating a bill targeted toward beefing up security with better or new equipment and technology along the Southwest border, while Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, has said that he anticipates that border legislation will be moved along, with such legislation adding additional surveillance, improved visa-tracking mechanisms, better fencing and a likely enforcement of background checks at workplaces via the E-verify system that can check the immigration status of employees for eligibility to work in the country.

"Once we pass a strong border security enforcement bill, we'll turn our attention to the other things, as well" to adjust immigration policy, Johnson said, according to the WSJ.

Whether or not such legislation would include a repealing of the executive actions enacted by Obama is up in the air, but Republicans would likely face a stiff battle from the White House if such language is included, as President Obama could very well veto the bill on such grounds, while Democrats in Congress could also still mount opposition that would prevent any overriding votes on that front.

Earlier this month, U.S. Senators Joe Donnelly, D-Indiana, and Heidi Heitkamp, D-North Dakota, sent a letter to House and Senate leaders in both parties calling for them to work together in order to pass "meaningful immigration reform."

While noting that they disagreed with President Obama's decision to act unilaterally on immigration policy, they added that the way to fix the nation's immigration system was for Congress to "pass bipartisan, common sense legislation. We encourage you to reconsider the Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform bill in the next Congress or use it as a starting point for a future compromise."

Related