Difficult Spot for Obama on Immigration Push
Published: July 11, 2013 - New York Times
WASHINGTON — As opposition to an overhaul of the immigration
system hardens
in the Republican-controlled House, President
Obama is trapped between the need to promote what could be a legacy piece of
legislation and the reality that being out front might be counterproductive at
best.
Immigration advocates, including members of the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus, are urging Mr. Obama to undertake a
campaign-style push and travel the country giving big speeches to rally support
for the bill. “We believe that the president is giving consideration to going
across the country and explaining to the American people the benefits that will
come from passage of this legislation,” said Representative Rubén Hinojosa,
Democrat of Texas, after members of the caucus met with the president. “We
welcome that.”
But other lawmakers in the House and Senate who
support an immigration overhaul are warning the president to keep a low profile
as debate intensifies in the weeks ahead. Senator John McCain, Republican of
Arizona, and Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, both said
Thursday that they wanted the president to play an unobtrusive role.
“These Republican House members — many of them are in
districts that they will be representing for a long time — do not feel that they
have been unduly pressured by the president of the United States,” Mr. McCain
said after a White House meeting with Mr. Obama. “So I think the president is
walking a careful line here, and I think it’s the appropriate one.”
Top Republicans in the House have in the meantime told
Mr. Obama’s staff that an ambitious push by the White House would backfire in
trying to persuade conservative House members to support some kind of
immigration overhaul.
“It has been conveyed from the speaker’s office to
theirs that if a positive outcome is desired, it would be best for the president
to stay out of it,” one Republican leadership aide said Thursday.
The president’s political advisers say they are
sensitive to the politics of immigration in the House, where an overt pressure
campaign for the legislation by Mr. Obama is more likely to persuade Republicans
to dig in their heels against the effort. Instead, aides said, Mr. Obama will
offer his support to advocacy groups and lawmakers strategically.
In the last two days, for example, the White House
released reports and videos that argue the economic benefits of an immigration
overhaul, but that use neither the president’s image nor his voice. White House
officials said that the president’s support for the legislation has not wavered,
but that there are no immediate plans for Mr. Obama to deliver a speech on the
issue or to travel for on-the-road immigration events similar to ones he held on
gun
control, infrastructure
investments and early
childhood education.
“The president will continue to do all he can to make
the case for reform both publicly and working behind the scenes with supporters
of the legislation on Capitol Hill and elsewhere,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the
White House communications director. “But we are aware of and sensitive to the
fact that ultimately how the House Republicans choose to resolve this issue is
something for them to decide.”
The president’s strategy of keeping a low profile
during debate on immigration legislation in the Senate in June appears to have
worked. A bipartisan bill developed by the “Gang of Eight” — four Democratic
senators and four Republican senators — passed
the Senate in a 68-to-32 vote late last month. Backers of the bill said they
hoped the easy passage would put pressure on the House to act.
But Speaker John A. Boehner made clear on Thursday
that his Republican members did not intend to even consider the Senate
legislation.
“We are not going to do the Senate bill,” Mr. Boehner
told reporters. Instead, he said, the House may consider a series of smaller
bills that address individual parts of the immigration system, like border
security or identity verification.
“It’s clear from the conversation yesterday that the
vast majority of our members do believe that we have to wrestle with this
problem,” Mr. Boehner said. “It’s clear that dealing with this in bite-size
chunks that the members can digest and the American people can digest is the
right way to go.”
Top White House officials said that advocates of an
immigration overhaul — including the president, lawmakers and outside
campaigners — have to find ways to keep the pressure on those House members.
They did not rule out the possibility that Mr. Obama would become more forceful
and public if it seemed like the effort was stalled or headed in a direction
that immigration activists would not accept.
In the coming days, White House officials are planning
a conference call with small-business owners to encourage them to stay engaged
and Mr. Obama may use his weekly address to call on the House to act.
For now, officials said, the president is more likely
to wait and see what progress Mr. Boehner and other Republicans make in the
House. Republican leaders said this week they did not expect much work to be
done before lawmakers leave Washington in August for a summer recess, but
officials on Capitol Hill and at the White House are eager to make sure the
effort does not languish for too long.
“I believe that the president feels strongly about
immigration,” Mr. Schumer said at the White House on Thursday. “I believe he’ll
continue to let America know how important it is to getting immigration reform
done. But I believe that he will continue to let the details be worked out by
Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate.”