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If the Senate immigration bill came up for a vote in the House, it would probably pass — some of the Republicans and almost all of the Democrats would combine for 218 votes. But conservatives have extracted promises from John Boehner not to let that happen, and the Speaker has dutifully pledged to keep the House from voting on any bill that lacks the support of most Republicans. That would seem to make comprehensive reform pretty dead, right? Except Paul Ryan, who clearly wants to pass a bill, floated a way around this promise: -snip- So the plan he's discussing...

A union representing 12,000 federal immigration workers is warning top House Republicans against legalizing young undocumented immigrants. The union is made up of employees of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which handles immigration paperwork. In a letter sent on Tuesday to four Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Virginia) and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wisconsin), the union expressed worries about a Republican bill that would legalize DREAMers. Since President Obama has already given deportation relief to young undocumented immigrants -- and bypassed Congress to do it -- the union worries he might similarly use his executive power to rework...

Little is known about Sergio Martinez-Perez, who is accused of killing a 93-year-old Omaha woman and is in the United States illegally. Martinez-Perez, 19, was formally charged Friday with first-degree murder in the rape and slaying of Louise Sollowin. He is a native of Sonora, Mexico. Shawn Neudauer, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Friday that federal authorities have placed a detainer on Martinez-Perez. That means that if Douglas County authorities were to release him, he would be placed in ICE custody. Neudauer said he couldn't comment on the specifics of Martinez-Perez's immigration status, citing agency policy....

CNN's Wolf Blitzer pressed him to retract his words, but Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, said he stood by his statement to Newsmax TV that for every valedictorian who came across the border illegally, there are 100 children smuggling drugs.

A teenager will now face first-degree murder charges in connection with the rape and death of a 93-year-old South Omaha woman. Autopsy results indicated that Louise Sollowin died of complications due to blunt-force trauma to her head and body, according to Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine. Sergio Martinez-Perez, 19, who had faced first-degree sexual assault charges, will be arraigned on the murder charges in Douglas County Court at 1 p.m. Friday, Kleine said. SNIP Omaha police say they found Martinez-Perez naked and on top of Sollowin. He had beaten her, sexually assaulted her and broken several bones in her face...

House Republicans have steered clear of the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform bill and its approach, pledging to proceed in steps to overhauling the nation’s immigration system instead. Democrats have been using that strategy as a way to paint the GOP as callous and unconcerned (at the least) about immigrants, especially their children. National Journal reports that Eric Cantor will try to turn the tables on that argument, daring Democrats to support border security in exchange for legalization of minors: An emerging coalition of House Republicans is arguing that young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children constitute “a special...

Updated 7:26 p.m. | Republicans and Democrats slammed Rep. Steve King Tuesday for saying last week that children who were brought to the U.S. illegally don’t deserve “amnesty” because they’re not “all valedictorians.” South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy called the remarks “reprehensible,” while Florida Democrat Joe Garcia argued they were “beneath the dignity” of a member of Congress. The Iowa Republican told the conservative website NewsMax that he is sympathetic to the situation in which many undocumented children find themselves. But he said those so-called DREAMers are not all created equal. “Some of them are valedictorians — and their...

Texas Senator Ted Cruz might only be in the first year of his first term in U.S. Senate, but he is already igniting the imaginations of Iowa Republicans who view him as strong presidential candidate in 2016 should he choose to run. Cruz was in Des Moines on Friday to address the Iowa Renewal Project, an annual weekend gathering of Iowa pastors and religious leaders. Cruz also attended a picnic fundraiser for the Republican Party of Iowa, and met with Republican activists and operatives during his first foray into Iowa. Cruz downplayed the significance of his trip to Iowa in...

A House panel on immigration on Tuesday took up proposals that carve a pathway to citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants who were brought here at a young age. The Republican-led panel pitched the issue as a key piece of their stepwise approach to immigration reform. “They had no input in their parents’ decision to bring the family to the U.S. illegally. And many of them know no other home that the United States, having grown up as Americans since they were toddlers,” Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican, said at the hearing heavily attended by Hispanic youth. Subcommittee...

Trey Gowdy reciting archetypal "undocumented" sob story.

A Republican-led push to legalize young unauthorized immigrants has been met with stony resistance from groups representing the very "Dreamers" such a bill would help. Immigrant advocacy groups say the proposed "Kids Act" is a way to avoid a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, which would provide a pathway to citizenship to a much larger number of immigrants. The Kids Act, like earlier "Dream Act" proposals, would legalize young people who were brought to the country by their parents and meet certain requirements. "We will not stand for anything that separates our families," said Greisa Martinez, an organizer...

But buried deep within the immigration bill are hidden multimillion-dollar slush funds for left-wing nonprofit groups to provide services to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now in the U.S.

On Thursday, Speaker John Boehner gave a sliver of fresh insight into his thinking about immigration reform, saying he thinks legislation will pass the House before Congress has to wrestle with the debt ceiling. The Ohio Republican said “we’ll see, but I would hope so” when asked if an overhaul of the nation’s migrant laws would pass before the debt ceiling — which is expected to need lifting in October or November. Pulling the veil back even more on his views on the topic, Boehner said that Americans “expect that no one who broke our laws will get special treatment.”...

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday offered an endorsement for a proposal to grant citizenship to children who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents. “This is about basic fairness,” Boehner said one week after convening a two-hour meeting to discuss immigration with his conference. “These children were brought here of no accord of their own, and frankly they’re in a very difficult position,” he said. “And I think many of our members believe that this issue needs to be addressed.” Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) are crafting a bill to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats doggedly pursuing a far-reaching immigration bill are counting on help from Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s running mate last year and an unlikely candidate for delivering the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s second-term agenda. Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman who is frequently mentioned in the GOP lineup of possible 2016 presidential candidates, stands apart from many fellow House Republicans in favoring a way out of the shadows for the 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. in violation of the law. He casts sweeping overhaul as a necessity to ensure both economic and national...

The House Republican leadership is reaching out to top House Democrats to assess their support for a piecemeal approach to immigration reform, according to sources involved in the discussions. The House’s immigration gameplan is to pass individual bills rather than take the comprehensive approach advocated by the Senate. -snip- The meeting, and the lack of progress made, is sure to frustrate the corporate interests who are dropping millions of dollars into the effort to reform immigration. There was no real sense about whether the GOP will try to reform the high-skilled and low-skilled visa process, providing a new pathway to...

Two weeks after the end of his failed vice-presidential bid, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was already thinking ahead to another big fight: immigration reform. And he was thinking about it in a bipartisan way. Ryan ran into his old friend, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), and urged him to restart his effort to get a comprehensive immigration package through Congress.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) urged their House Republican colleagues to pass immigration reform legislation in a closed-door meeting Wednesday, with the Speaker arguing his conference would be “in a much weaker position” if it failed to act. A divided House Republican conference met for more than two hours in the basement of the Capitol to begin hashing out a response to the sweeping immigration bill the Senate passed last month. -snip- He (Issa) said the House would deal with the 11 million illegal immigrants, but that the conference viewed them not as a uniform block,...

Speaker John Boehner told Republicans that the internal debate over immigration reform is an “important conversation,” as the House GOP kicked off its closed-door meeting Wednesday afternoon. Boehner said the House will “not” take up the Senate-passed bill, but said members must do something to address the issue, according to sources inside the room. Majority Leader Eric Cantor, harkening back to when President Barack Obama first took office, said Republicans need to have a counter offer, just like their alternative to the stimulus.

The university's Stritch School of Medicine not only intends to waive legal residency as an admissions requirement for applicants but aims to offer a financing plan through a state agency