WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders abruptly postponed a high-stakes vote Thursday on Republican immigration legislation that appeared headed to defeat, despite President Trump’s last-minute lobbying.
Instead, Republicans planned to vote Friday in hopes that they could revise the bill and potentially persuade the last few holdouts, according to a senior Republican aide.
The Republican bill, negotiated between the conservatives and moderate wings of the party, sought to respond to a pair of brewing crises precipitated by Trump – his decision to separate migrant children from their families at the southwest border and his cancellation of a program protecting young undocumented immigrants from deportation.
White House officials and Trump himself traveled to Capitol Hill this week seeking to force Congress to take action on immigration. But many Republican lawmakers saw the lobbying effort as abortive and perplexing, culminating in Trump tweeting Thursday morning that the Senate would reject anything the House passed, dampening House members’ enthusiasm for taking a tough vote.
The legislation would have provided a pathway to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants, imposed limits on legal immigration and provided $25 billion for Trump’s border wall. The bill also would have kept migrant families together at the border in detention centers.
Republican leadership abandoned plans for a Thursday vote in the face of growing opposition from Republican conservatives and moderates. Word circulated of the decision just as the House rejected a more hard-line bill, 231-193.
On that bill, Maine’s delegation split, with Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, opposed, and Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-2nd District, voting in favor.
Neither bill was negotiated with Democrats or was expected to garner any Democratic votes. The separations crisis has prompted Democrats to dig in against the Republican immigration efforts barring a complete reversal of Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy.
“Democrats are dedicated to securing our border, but we don’t think putting children in cages is the way to do it,” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said Thursday. “This is outside the circle of human behavior.”
At a late-morning news conference, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wisconsin, did not concede defeat but repeatedly referenced the prospect of both bills failing and characterized scheduled votes Thursday afternoon as “a legitimate exercise.”
“I think we’re advancing the cause even if something doesn’t pass,” Ryan said. “I think these are the seeds that are going to be planted for an ultimate solution.”
The likelihood of defeat underscored continued congressional dysfunction, particularly in overhauling the nation’s immigration system, and the struggle to unite the conservative and more moderate wings of the Republican Party on the issue.
Several Republican aides and lawmakers said Trump undermined prospects for success in the House on Thursday with a morning tweet that cast doubt on whether any Republican immigration legislation could pass the Senate.
The president suggested Senate Democrats would use the chamber’s filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes for legislation to advance, to scuttle any bill that emerged from the House.
“What is the purpose of the House doing good immigration bills when you need 9 votes by Democrats in the Senate, and the Dems are only looking to Obstruct (which they feel is good for them in the Mid-Terms),” Trump said. “Republicans must get rid of the stupid Filibuster Rule-it is killing you!”
Republican aides involved in trying to pass the bills said Trump’s tweet would only harm efforts to corral votes. The tweet, they suggested, signaled to wavering House Republicans that the bills up for a vote are not going to make it into law – and therefore there is little incentive for lawmakers to risk a conservative backlash by voting for a more moderate alternative that has been negotiated among Republicans over the past month.
“Wow, this undermines getting undecided Republican members to support the compromise,” Rep. Ryan Costello, R-Pennsylvania, said on Twitter following Trump’s tweet.
In an interview afterward, Costello said Trump was deliberately giving cover to Republicans reluctant to vote for the more moderate bill “rather than leaning into it and pressing members to be a ‘yes.’ ”
“He knows exactly what he’s doing,” Costello said, predicting the legislation would “blow up.”
Other Republican lawmakers also raised doubts about whether Republicans could cobble together a majority for passage.
Asked about what happens next if the bills fail, Meadows replied, “I think you start with a legislative fix for the parent-child separation issue that may grow from there.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, a key moderate voice on immigration, announced that he would oppose the compromise legislation, in part because of the inclusion of funding for Trump’s proposed border wall, which Hurd called “an expensive and ineffective 4th-century border security tool that takes private property away from hundreds of Texans.”
“I’ve said time and time again that a long-term solution must be bipartisan, and I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle so that we can actually solve these problems once and for all,” Hurd, who represents a district on the border, said in a statement.
As prospects on Capitol Hill appeared to dim, Trump teed off on Democrats during the outset of a Cabinet meeting at the White House, suggesting that they were standing in the way of Republican success on immigration reform.
“They say no to everything,” Trump said. “They’re obstructionists because they think that’s good politically. I think it’s bad politically – for them, I think it’s bad politically. We’ll see.”
Trump attacked Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-New York, as “extremist open-border Democrats” but also said he would welcome their presence at the negotiating table.
“We should be able to do a bill,” Trump said. “I’d invite them to come over to the White House anytime they want.”
The White House has made a last-minute push to pass legislation amid the brewing border crisis prompted by the family separations that resulted on the U.S.-Mexico border from Trump’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy.
Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen have all appeared on Capitol Hill this week to urge Republican lawmakers to pass legislation. They have not specifically urged passage of one alternative, which stands to end with Republicans split on their preference and neither bill passing.
The two House bills emerged from a tumultuous process touched off weeks ago when a group of moderate Republican rebels filed a discharge petition to force votes on legislation that included protections for young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers.”
That prompted Ryan and Republican leaders to convene negotiations aimed at writing a consensus Republican bill that could pass the House to forestall passage of more liberal bipartisan bills that would pass with mostly Democratic votes.
The compromise measure would provide $25 billion for Trump’s long-sought border wall, offer a pathway to citizenship to young undocumented immigrants and keep migrant families together.
A competing, hard-line bill by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, would not guarantee dreamers a path to permanent legal residency and includes controversial enforcement measures such as the mandatory use of a worker verification program.
The legislation has also been further complicated by the Trump administration’s decision to separate migrant children from their parents at the border, which has forced leaders to add language addressing the ensuing humanitarian and political crisis.
Trump also attacked Democratic leaders in tweets sent out earlier Thursday.
“The Border has been a big mess and problem for many years,” Trump wrote. “At some point Schumer and Pelosi, who are weak on Crime and Border security, will be forced to do a real deal, so easy, that solves this long time problem. Schumer used to want Border security – now he’ll take Crime!”
Trump appeared to have reached a deal last year with Schumer and Pelosi that would have addressed the dreamers situation, but the White House later backed off, insisting on harder-line positions than those discussed during a meeting with the Democratic leaders.
As the House geared up for a pivotal day on immigration, Schumer sought to tamp down talk of passing legislation on his side of the Capitol to address family separations, instead pressuring Trump to use his executive powers to resolve lingering concerns.
“Legislation in Congress remains unlikely and far more difficult to achieve than the simple corrective actions that the president can take,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor.
“Let us not forget,” he added, “immigration has been the graveyard of legislation for years in this Congress. Saying Congress can act and getting Congress to act are two different things.”
Schumer’s comments put him at odds with some Republican senators and even some in his own party’s ranks, who have said that even though Trump issued an executive order halting the separations, Congress should still move ahead with legislation to address concerns the decree did not address.
The Senate Democratic leader is determined to ensure the public understands this is an issue Trump created and should continue to own.
Sean Sullivan contributed to this report.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
