Revived hopes that House Republican leaders might introduce a package of immigration reform bills for a vote this year were dashed on Friday after the office of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters that “nothing has changed” in the speaker’s stance on the issue, according to Fusion. “As he's said many times, the Speaker believes step-by-step reform is important, but it won't happen until the president builds trust and demonstrates a commitment to the rule of law,” wrote a spokesman from Boehner’s office in an email.
Advocates of immigration reform had perked up at a Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal that Boehner had said he was “hellbent on getting it done this year” at a Los Vegas fundraiser last month. Meanwhile, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who chairs the House Judicial Committee, reportedly told a business group during a recent trip to Silicon Valley that he was optimistic about the odds of legislative action on the issue. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, who has long been active on the issue, urged his peers in the House to move in an interview with the Washington Post this week, warning the president could soon take executive action if not. He added that he has written a bill which would give legal status to many of the 11.7 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the US.
Boehner and other House Republican leaders have said they do not trust Obama to enforce any provisions written into legislation which would seek to ramp up government control of traffic along the southern border. In a statement in late February following his meeting with the president on the issue, Boehner said, “Every time the president ignores the law, like the 38 times he has on ObamaCare, our members look up and go, 'Wait a minute: You can't have immigration reform without strong border security and internal enforcement. How can we trust the President to actually obey the law and enforce the law that we would write?'”
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