Speaker Boehner’s recent comment that there would be no conference on the Senate bill appears to have been a lawyerly evasion. He has now hired Rebecca Tallent to “lead immigration efforts for the House,” in the words of the press release. Until tomorrow, she’s director of immigration policy for the pro-amnesty Bipartisan Policy Center. She was McCain’s chief of staff, directing his participation in the 2005-07 amnesty battle. Before that she worked for Representative Jim Kolbe, also pushing amnesty.
The fact that the GOP House leadership has handed direction of immigration policy over to someone who’s spent a career pushing for amnesty and increased immigration confirms the suspicions of immigration skeptics. The Republican party leadership really does seem dead-set on satisfying corporate demands and trying to ram an amnesty down the throats of its own voters. I still think we’ll end next year with no bill on the president’s desk, but 2014 is going to be much more interesting from an immigration-policy perspective than the conventional wisdom had it up to now.