House Speaker Paul Ryan is ready to make a few big changes in his new role.
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“If we believe and have consensus on things like border enforcement and interior security, then fine”, he said on ABC’s “This Week”.
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Mr. Obama’s executive orders from November 2014 circumvented the gridlocked partisan Congress, intending to protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.
Pablo Manriquez of the Democratic National Committee called Ryan’s comments “laughable” and said the Republicans are the ones who are untrustworthy on immigration reform.
The immigration issue has driven a wedge between Hispanics, an increasingly important voting bloc, and Republicans, many of whom take a hard line on illegal immigration, to the benefit of Obama’s fellow Democrats.
Ryan acknowledged that he promised the House Freedom Caucus, which includes the most conservative members of the House, not to bring up immigration reform legislation, and blamed Obama.
“We’re wasting a lot of money and money we don’t have and we’re not far in the country from a failure, a bankruptcy”, Paul Robbins said. “We have been bold on tactics but not on policy, not on an agenda”.
For Ryan, the move removes the prospects of a clash with the same House conservatives who made John Boehner’s life hard and helped push Boehner into retirement.
Comprehensive immigration reform has always been a bipartisan issue. It leaves the legislation stalled in the House and without a chance of being revived in the Senate.
Boehner says he told Ryan: “This isn’t about what you want to do”. “Presidents don’t write laws”.
The topic of immigration has figured prominently on the campaign trail for the 2016 USA presidential election.
“Reforming our immigration system, securing our borders would be good for America”.
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If Ryan has his way, the matter will likely be deferred until at least January 2017, when a new president is sworn into office.
