House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte’s (R-Va.) H.R. 4760 will get a floor vote at some point during the week of June 17th. Chairman Goodlatte has been negotiating changes in the bill to drum up more support, but is still short of the 218 votes needed for passage. A vote on H.R. 4760 would kill the effort to establish votes on four immigration measures through a discharge petition for H.Res. 774.
Rep. Scalise confirmed GOP leaders are still trying to develop an alternative that could garner the requisite votes.
"There’s still talks to see if we can all coalesce around an approach that addresses border security, wall funding, DACA, chain migration in a way that the president can support — a conservative solution to this problem," Scalise said.
According to a report in The Hill, Chairman Goodlate will soon propose changes to H.R. 4760 to attract more support. As introduced the bill would mandate E-Verify, end chain migration and the visa lottery program, authorize $30 billion for a border wall, shore up interior and border enforcement, and penalize sanctuary cities. It also would provide DACA recipients with a three-year legal status and work permit, which could be renewed indefinitely, but not citizenship.
Goodlatte’s proposal reportedly would expand the renewable period from three years to six years, but still not grant citizenship. It also would increase the per-country numerical limitation for family-based green cards, create a new green-card category for 6,000 nurses, cap new visas for meat and poultry processors at 40,000, eliminate the requirements for agricultural guest workers to prove they won’t abandon a residence in a foreign country, and ensure agricultural guest workers won’t have to wait for a visa while they touch back in their home countries.
If the discharge petition garners 218 signatures, an obscure House rule provides that a vote can only occur on a Monday during the second or fourth week of the month. That means under the House calendar, Rep. Jeff Denham’s (R-Calif.) H.Res. 774 can get a vote no earlier than June 25th. Since the vote would occur after the one on H.R. 4760, H.Res. 774 would be nullified because it relies on Goodlatte’s bill for its voting sequence.
