CBS News) House members will "take a look at" the comprehensive immigration
reform legislation that sailed through the Senate last month, House Homeland
Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Sunday on "Face the
Nation," but ultimately the Republican-controlled chamber is "going to do our
own thing."
"Americans don't want a comprehensive bill like what we saw with Obamacare,
that passed in the middle of the night... they don't want comprehensive. What
they want is regular-order pieces of legislation," McCaul said, explaining the
House's plan to pass immigration reform elements piecemeal.
A GOP conference Wednesday to discuss immigration reform will focus on the
Senate's proposal to open a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented
immigrants currently living in the United States, and "applying Obamacare,"
McCaul said. He predicted under regular order, they can reach a conference
committee by the end of 2013 or in early 2014, "where we do hash out the
differences between the Senate and the House versions."
One tenet of the Senate bill McCaul said he takes particular issue with is a
robust and pricey border security amendment he believes was "hatched at the last
minute to get votes" of conservatives who were holding out for tighter border
control. "I have some concerns about... throwing $46 billion at a problem
without any plan, without any strategy, without any definition of operational
control," he said. "And, you know, there's an old saying, you know, if you fail
to plan, you plan to fail."
McCaul channeled a remark from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that
Republicans "need to be the party of solutions and not always obstructing." But
politics from the other side, he worried, pose a threat to the House's GOP
majority.
"I am deeply concerned that the effort should be bipartisan - border security
on my committee was (an) unanimously approved, completely bipartisan bill," he
said. "My concern of the political backdrop could be that the White House would
like to see this fail in the House so that it can blame the House of
Representatives for that and then try to take back the House of Representatives.
And then, all bets are off on his agenda."
Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, later
on the show argued that Democrats aren't trying to sabotage Republicans in 2014.
But, he conceded, "once you start it in 2014, it's all politics - and so I hope
that Republicans recognize that we've got to get this done quickly."
Becerra said "there's reason to feel optimistic if, indeed, Chairman McCaul's
Republican colleagues will follow him. Where we probably disagree is on trying
to do this in a piecemeal way, which won't fix the entire machine. You have to
fix the entire machine."
Earlier on the show, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a member of the "gang of
eight" lawmakers who drafted the Senate bill, said he was "disappointed" his
party's leadership voted unanimously against it, but called himself an "eternal
optimist" that the House GOP will find a way forward.
"We are not trying to dictate what the House of Representatives should do -
and I believe that if they can come up with a bill, we would be more than eager
to negotiate with them," he said. "A failure to act is de facto amnesty for 11
million people living in the shadows. I think wherever you are on that issue,
there's agreement on that. So then shouldn't we sit down together and solve this
issue? Not only for the good of the Republican Party, but for the good of the
nation."
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