Isn't it nice to take a vacation paid for by your employer...

Immigration torments GOP as feel-good retreat kicks off

House and Senate Republicans are miles apart on a fix for Dreamers — a problem that threatens the party's entire 2018 agenda.

By RACHAEL BADE and BURGESS EVERETT

Congressional Republicans arrived here Wednesday for their annual retreat dogged by internal divisions over immigration — and seemingly intent on avoiding the issue altogether.

The schedule for the three-day gathering at a luxury 11,000 acre-resort in the Appalachians does not include a single session on immigration. This despite a deadline barely a month away to extend protections to hundreds of thousands of young immigrants facing deportation — and the logjam that dilemma has caused for Republican priorities like boosting defense spending.

Instead, Republicans — rattled by a deadly collision between a truck and an Amtrak train carrying lawmakers to the retreat — are set to hold sessions to congratulate themselves for tax reform, talk about infrastructure, and learn how to make care packages for troops.

Leadership’s unwillingness to confront the internal divide over immigration comes as Republicans are turning on each other in a battle for the soul of their party. The Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program expires March 5, though a recent court action has softened that deadline. President Donald Trump decided last fall to terminate the program, and the Senate is preparing to take up an immigration debate in February.

But the party is all over the place on how, or even whether, to act to shield the beneficiaries.

The internal tensions threaten to overshadow the entire year in Congress and color the midterm elections, with control of both chambers on the line. If Republicans can't get past immigration, it's possible they won't be able to address spending, infrastructure or other priorities that are already seen as reaches in an election year. The standoff over immigration is at the heart of the ongoing fight over government spending, too — the latest deadline to prevent another shutdown is now only a week away.

“That’s a pretty big schism, between the House and the Senate,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 3 GOP leader. “And so I just think that we need to be really aware, if we want to get a result, what the limitations are in both bodies."

It's hard to see where an immigration compromise might lie.

The White House proposed giving 1.8 million Dreamers a pathway to citizenship in exchange for a border wall with Mexico and several conservative immigration policy changes. But while Senate Republicans believe the plan tacks too far to the right, saying its steep cuts to legal immigration will never win over Democrats, many immigration hawks in the House have dismissed Trump’s pitch as “amnesty.”

“I don’t think [Americans] want amnesty or anything that looks like amnesty encouraging people to come here illegally,” said Freedom Caucus conservative Scott Perry (R-Pa.). “[T]he White House proposal is not what they think they signed up for. It’s not what I signed up for.”

Trump further divided Congress with his remarks on immigration in his State of the Union speech. Though some Republicans praised him for offering a pathway to citizenship and a concrete plan to fund the border, Democrats were alarmed by his "demonization of Latino immigrants," said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).

In the House, conservatives are pushing Speaker Paul Ryan’s team to essentially ignore the White House proposal, which they find too moderate. Instead, they want a vote on a more conservative bill authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.).

But that bill is a “nonstarter” in the Senate, said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

GOP leaders are arguing internally that the Goodlatte measure goes well beyond the president’s proposal, with its controversial requirements that all companies verify the legal status of their employees. They argue the bill would never pass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold — let alone win the united support of a House GOP conference that’s split over its merits.

But immigration hawks say Ryan should move the Goodlatte bill to the floor anyway. Freedom Caucus members made leaders promise to try to whip the needed 218 votes on the immigration bill in order to win conservative votes on the deal to fund the government. Now, they feel leadership hasn’t done enough to advocate for the measure and are threatening to vote against a bill extending government funding that expires next week.

“I’m for the Goodlatte plan,” said Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), a Freedom Caucus member.

As for the Senate’s dismissal of the legislation, he jabbed: “If you look at Senate tactics and outcome on health care, how did it go? The Senate’s all grandstanding. [Sen.] Lindsey Graham and whoever, waving a plan every other day: ‘Come over here with the shiny object!’ … Then, they face-plant.”

A bipartisan group of senators is meeting regularly on immigration, even as talks have stalled among a group of congressional whips also working on finding common ground. Senators say the only way to get an immigration deal is for their chamber to take the lead — to win a big bipartisan majority for a plan and then pressure the House and Trump to get on board.

“If the president gets behind what the Senate does, then that means a lot of" House Republicans will fall in line, Flake said. “The House isn’t going to get out in front of the president. We’ve known that. The Senate’s going to have to move ahead and then see what the House does.”

But Republicans in both chambers are wary of that view. In 2013, the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration bill with 68 votes, only to watch the House ignore it.

Thune predicted the bipartisan plan being kicked around in the Senate would be too moderate to pass muster in the other chamber. “That’s not a bill that passes the House.”

House Republicans agree that a Senate "gang" won't dictate what they do. Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said the House should pass the Goodlatte bill and leave the Senate to figure out what to do.

“Is there a bill [Senate Democratic Whip] Dick Durbin is going to like that Jim Jordan, Dave Brat, Mark Meadows are going to like? That’s the dilemma,” said Jordan (R-Ohio), a Freedom Caucus founder. “But I know what the American people want: They didn’t vote for a Durbin bill [on the 2016 ballot]; they voted for a Goodlatte bill.”

But senators pride themselves on coming together in times of crisis to solve problems. And after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) vowed to take up an immigration bill in February, the group of senators holed up in Sen. Susan Collins' office each afternoon are pledging to put the upper chamber in the driver’s seat.

They are skeptical that the House will ever send them something that Senate Democrats can accept, and they believe they can score an endorsement from the president if they can rack up a legislative victory by a overwhelming margin.

“The best way that we can deal with that is if we can get a bill that has 65 or 70 votes and the president supports it. I think that’s our best chance for House support,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

Yet despite optimism from Alexander, Collins (R-Maine) and other members of the burgeoning gang, some senators are skeptical that anything related to immigration can pass the Senate, period.

“I’ve heard a lot of talk. And I’ve seen a lot of people talking to cameras,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). But “I don’t think there’s 60 votes there, for anything.”