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House Republicans are fracturing over a bipartisan immigration plan, a feud that serves as a microcosm of the broader battle roiling the party ahead of the midterms.
The Dignity Act faces an onslaught of criticism from the right that is leaving some of its Republican backers exasperated. Instead of backing off of their support for the proposal, its Republican supporters are digging in — a sign of how intractable the fight over immigration policy is, even among Trump-supporting Republicans.
Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., who’s also a member of the hardline Freedom Caucus, called the Dignity Act a “good bill” and said he wanted his conservative colleagues to relent on the criticism. “I think we need to be realistic,” added Stutzman.
“There’s always controversy over a bill that people don’t read and then opine on it before they read it,” said Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., another supporter.
The legislation attempts to strike a balance between border security and immigration reform, attracting bipartisan support as well as backing from some business groups. The proposal would bolster border security, create a pathway for legal residency for “Dreamers” and DACA recipients, and revamp the legal immigration process, among other provisions.
The GOP’s tumult over one of the few bipartisan immigration proposals in President Donald Trump’s second term is a window into broader unease over immigration during the Trump presidency. Although Republicans largely back Trump’s hardline stances on border security and deportations, they’ve already discussed the need for a rhetorical shift in response to a public backlash to the administration’s mass deportation campaign.
At the same time, Republicans are nowhere near consensus on how to handle legal immigration pathways or the estimated 14 million immigrants who are living in the US without legal authorization.
For the right flank of the party like some of the House Freedom Caucus, the legislation and its so-called “dignity status” for immigrants who have lived in the country for more than five years is antithetical to the hardline approach to immigration ushered in by Trump’s 2024 victory. Conservatives voiced criticism of the legislation on social media and in interviews and even formed a new PAC to back primary challengers to the bill’s backers.
“It’s a violation of core conservative principles. It’s a betrayal of everything that we ran on in the last election. It would be terrible for the country,” said Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, of the bill. And Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., described the bloc’s objection as both cosmetic — “it’s named in Spanish,” he said — and policy-based because it “offers amnesty to people who are here.”
Supporters of the proposal strenuously deny the bill includes “amnesty” provisions. What’s more, the legislation has no clear path to getting a vote on the House floor, which has left some of its backers even more baffled by the pushback.
House Republicans are focused instead on enforcement-related legislation and are preparing to take up party-line legislation to bolster the Department of Homeland Security’s funding for three years as well. They still haven’t passed a Senate bill that would reopen most of the department.
Some lawmakers are instead staking their hopes on building momentum behind the legislation by having the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus endorse it and eventually getting it in front of the president, whom they hope could endorse it.
“It’s up to the president. The president is a very smart guy,” said the bill’s Republican lead, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla. “He comes from hospitality and from construction.”
She also ruled out the prospect of a discharge petition to force the bill to the House floor, saying “I’m going to do it the hard way.”
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The Dignity Act is already surfacing in some Republican political campaigns. Take California’s 40th congressional district, which put GOP Reps. Ken Calvert and Young Kim into a new red district together after the state redrew its congressional districts. Calvert’s campaign has gone after Kim, who used to represent a purple district, for supporting “amnesty” for immigrants, and a PAC spending in the race against Kim has accused her in a recent ad of having “opposed President Trump’s immigration policy, voting to protect convicted criminal illegal immigrants from deportation.”
“Amnesty hasn’t been popular where I come from,” Calvert said. Republican political consultant Rob Stutzman said immigration could end up being a salient issue for the GOP primary electorate, and to him, “it lays bare the problem that moderates have being cast into safe seats.”
But Kim showed no signs of changing her position on the legislation, saying she wouldn’t take herself off the bill: “we need to fix the broken immigration system, and also this is a way to secure the border, address the broken system.”
The View From democrats
Democrats were initially befuddled by the backlash to their Republican counterparts on the legislation. They’re not immune to division on their side on the issue either, and the legislation includes many concessions from Democrats, such as not including a pathway to citizenship for “Dreamers.” But Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, the top Democratic cosponsor, said she wasn’t deterred by the controversy on the right.
“It’s always been challenging to get Republican support precisely because this is the environment that that politics exists in, but we’ll see. Ultimately the American people want reform,” she said.
And others see it as the best bill they might be able to get with Trump in the White House.
“I certainly don’t feel like we can wait until we have what feels like the perfect environment for immigration in order to act, to move the Dignity Act,” said Rep. Hillary Scholten, D-Mich.
Nicholas’s view
Republicans may end up kicking themselves if they don’t pass an immigration bill, because Democrats will. And will probably be more expansive than the Dignity Act.
If Democrats flip the House, look to the fight over immigration to move among lawmakers on the left as many seek to pass long-stalled immigration bills. Democrats have previously pushed for immigration bills like the Dream and Promise Act to overhaul the immigration system, but that could face Trump’s veto if the bill ever made it anywhere near his desk.
And as an added wrinkle, Democrats have been eyeing Salazar’s seat in the midterms this year, which could deprive them of their top Republican counterpart on the legislation if they succeed in flipping it.
Notable
- The House bucked Trump by passing a measure to bring back temporary protections for some Haitian migrants, The Washington Post reported.