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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Friday that if House Republicans end up sending their collection of immigration bills to a conference with the Senate, Democrats would win. “If we go to conference, we would win,” Reid told a Nevada radio station.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Tuesday evening with a delegation of 36 American congressmen headed by Congressman Steny Hoyer. During the meeting Netanyahu claimed that though Iran's president said pressure wouldn't help, in the last two decades pressure was the only thing that helped. snip

Conservatives in the House are not rushing to embrace an immigration proposal from party leaders to offer a path to citizenship to children who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents. Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, are crafting a bill that would be the first GOP plan to deal with some of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has endorsed the idea as a matter of “fairness” to grant citizenship to children who crossed the border through no fault of their own.

The Talk Shows August 4th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Reps. Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Justin Amash, R-Mich.; Michael Hayden, a former head of the CIA and the National Security Agency.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga.; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Reps. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas; and Sen. Chuck U. Schumer, D-N.Y.THIS WEEK (ABC): Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Reps. Peter King, R-N.Y., and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md.STATE OF THE UNION...

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...

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said Wednesday that comprehensive immigration reform has the support of dozens of members of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Among GOP backers of comprehensive reform he cited Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, the 2012 Republican candidate for vice president. Gutierrez said 195 of the 201 Democrats in the House would vote for a reform bill similar to the one passed last month by the Senate, meaning that fewer than two dozen Republican votes would be needed to reach the magic number of 218 required to pass it.

Keeping immigration on the back-burner helps avoid a recess filled with angry town-hall meetings reminiscent of the heated August 2009 protests where the backlash against health care reform coalesced. Doing nothing also starves Democrats of a target, Republicans argue. But for Boehner, who by all accounts wants to see some kind of immigration reform pass, that raised serious strategic problems. First, passing tougher enforcement measures before August would take all the momentum away from other more divisive measures, such as giving “Dreamers,” the children brought to the United States illegally, a legal option for staying in the country. While House...

Rep. Paul D. Ryan might have just given away the road map for House consideration of immigration reform. “Tentatively, in October, we’re going to vote on a border security bill, an interior enforcement bill, a bill for legal immigration,” the Wisconsin Republican and Budget Committee chairman told constituents at a district town hall event Friday, according to a report by the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. Ryan also reportedly said negotiations were underway for the chamber to vote on legislation that would provide undocumented immigrants with “probationary” visas while they waited a minimum of 15 years to attain citizenship.

President Barack Obama’s White House Press Secretary Jay Carney joined House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker John Boehner in making an inaccurate attack on Rep. Steve King (R-IA) over comments he made about efforts to grant amnesty to illegal aliens who entered America illegally while they were still minors. . . . Excerpt only.

Granting citizenship to illegal immigrants who were brought to the country as minors is the “compassionate” thing to do, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said on Wednesday. “[T]he history of our country is one that moved away from holding kids liable for the deeds, misdeeds, commitment of crime by parents,” Cantor said, during a GOP press conference on Capitol Hill. “And these, in many instances, are kids without a country if we don’t allow them to become full citizens of our country.” “It is not only an issue of fairness, as the Speaker said, it’s an issue of decency,...

A Republican rewrite of the No Child Left Behind education law seems to be losing momentum as conservatives in the party don't think the bill does enough to reduce Washington’s influence and moderates warily eye proposals that would expand charter schools’ role. The sweeping education law’s update was the latest example of fractured Republicans in the House, where the party has a majority but often stumbles over internal disagreements. Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Tuesday visited a Washington public charter school and pledged his support for such programs that compete with traditional public schools for students and dollars. The Virginia...

Facing deep resistance among House Republicans to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, GOP leaders are trying to muster support for a stripped-down immigration reform bill that would offer citizenship only to those brought into the country as children. The plan, which would almost certainly be a nonstarter for President Obama and Democrats who control the Senate, makes clear there will be no quick agreement on a Senate-passed bill and illustrates how wide the gap remains over fundamental immigration reform. … The proposal, pushed by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), has gained ground among Republicans....

“Seize the moment,” Cantor told them. The delay, he predicted, could “destabalize the coalition for Obamacare.” He then called on the House to pass a one-year delay of the individual mandate to go along with an employer-mandate delay. “After both bills pass we combine them into one bill to send to the Senate,” he said. “On the delay of the employer mandate, we will make the point that the president doesn’t have the authority to just ignore the law. It will also force Democrats into the position of supporting or opposing the president.”

(CNSNews.com) - President Obama's decision to delay for one year a key requirement of the Affordable Care Act was "a continuation of what we have begun to call the imperial presidency," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Sean Hannity Tuesday night. Cantor criticized President Obama for selectively enforcing the law. He also said the individual mandate should be delayed along with the mandate that applies to employers. But when Hannity asked if House Republicans would consider defunding Obamacare -- since efforts to repeal it have not worked -- Cantor's confusing response did not answer the question: "Right, and we...

Appearing on Hannity last night, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor promised to enforce the so-called “Hastert rule” on immigration reform, refusing to allow any proposal from a joint House-Senate conference committee to reach the House floor without the support of a majority of Republicans. When asked by Sean Hannity whether he would “insist” on the Hastert rule, the Virginia Republican replied, “Yes, I absolutely would, and I think the speaker of the House has said the same, that he would as well.” Asked about the possibility (raised yesterday by liberal Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent) of House Democrats joining with...

In a tense, closed-door meeting today at the Capitol, House majority leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) scolded several Republican committee chairmen for voting against the farm bill that failed to pass the House last month. According to several sources, Cantor told the chairmen it was “unacceptable” for them to not vote together on final passage, especially since the leadership supported their amendments to the agricultural package. (snip) Near the end, Cantor coolly reminded them that the leadership is much more likely to usher their bills to the floor if they stick with him on votes.

While most Americans rank the economy and government spending as the top challenges facing the nation, the Senate last month rushed through a comprehensive immigration bill to give amnesty to 11 million illegal aliens. The effort was more about the perceived needs of the Republican Party than the nation as a whole. The swift Senate action was intended to pressure the House to pass amnesty into law. The House seems to have other ideas. Last Friday, before Congress left for a week-long recess, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's office released to GOP House members a 3-page memo detailing issues that...

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said the House will investigate the IRS after the agency admitted to and apologized on Friday for targeting Tea Party and conservative groups during the 2012 election. "The IRS cannot target or intimidate any individual or organization based on their political beliefs," Cantor said on Friday. "The House will investigate this matter." Lois Lerner, the chief IRS official responsible for tax-exempt organizations, said the the IRS targeted groups that had the words "Tea Party" or "Patriots" in their names and that doing so was "wrong."

CNBC host Joe Kernen took House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) to task Friday over the Republican Party's opposition to same-sex marriage. In a rare discussion of social issues on the financial news program "Squawkbox," Kernen argued that the GOP has squandered its appeal with fiscally conservative voters by virtue of its opposition to gay nuptials. Cantor said some people, himself included, have legitimate religious objections to same-sex marriage. “There are those of us who have personal religious convictions about the issue," Cantor said. "And I think that we as a country need to respect people about their opinion, not...