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Conservatives backing immigration reform arent quite done trying to lobby Hill Republicans on an overhaul.

Key leaders on the right, including anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, will host a briefing for lawmakers and aides on the Hill on Tuesday to provide information from trusted conservatives about how to tackle immigration reform from a faith, law enforcement and business perspective, according to a notice obtained by POLITICO.

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We all know the struggles our broken immigration system causes our nation, Norquist, along with the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commissions Barrett Duke, wrote in the email sent to congressional offices. Under Republican leadership, the 114th Congress has an incredible opportunity to correct these problems.

The Republican-led Congress is unlikely to take up the kinds of sweeping reforms to the current immigration system that the Democratic-controlled Senate passed in 2013. For now, GOP lawmakers have been focused on killing President Barack Obamas executive action on immigration; House Republicans will fire the opening salvo in that fight this week with votes to gut the actions tied to a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security.

Speakers at the Capitol Visitor Center include Norquist, Duke, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller and Laura Foote Reiff, the chairwoman of the National Immigration Forums board. Its particularly noteworthy that Zoeller is involved, considering Indiana is part of a lawsuit from two dozen states, led by Texas, that argues Obamas executive actions are unconstitutional. That case gets a hearing Thursday in federal court in Brownsville, Texas.

Norquist is also going to Lincoln, Nebraska, on Feb. 2 to tout the economic impacts of immigration reform, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.

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Norquist pushes immigration reform to Hill GOP

The Republican-led U.S. House voted Wednesday to block President Barack Obama's immigration policies, setting the stage for a showdown between the White House and Congress over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the nation's borders and is slated to run out of money at the end of next month. The 236-191 vote on a broad bill came along party lines aimed at stopping Obama from extending legal benefits, including work permits, to millions of illegal immigrants.

At stake is$40 billionearmarked to fund the Homeland Security Department through the end of the fiscal year. The White House has threatened to veto any legislation that would undo Obama's immigration overhaul. Obama most recently announced in November a plan to shield undocumented immigrants whose children were born in the U.S. from deportation.

The House GOP's legislation would block Obama's 2012 and 2014 immigration policies that allow illegal immigrants who meet certain requirements to delay deportation and obtain work permits. The ideological battle began last year, when House Republicans threatened to shut down the federal government over Obama's policies that weren't approved by Congress. At the last minute, a deal was struck that resulted in Democratic and Republican lawmakers passing a federal budget for 2015 that only funded DHS through February.

"We do not take this action lightly, but simply there is no alternative," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday. "It's not a dispute between the parties or even between the branches of our government. This executive overreach is an affront to the rule of law and to the Constitution itself."

House leaders face a difficult campaign in their fight against the Obama administration's immigration policies. The more moderate Senate is unlikely to hold funding for DHS hostage and even some House Republicans have expressed concern about the strategy. I dont believe this is the right place to have the immigration debate, U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., told theWall Street Journal.We are overreaching into an area that goes above and beyond what were trying to accomplish with the Homeland Security bill.

One amendment from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., seeks to end Obama's 2012 policy extending legal rights to young immigrants brought to the United States as children. Another amendment from Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., states that the government should not grant rights to illegal immigrants before processing immigration applications from legal immigrants already in the U.S.

The president's immigration accountability executive actions strengthen our border security, ensure undocumented immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents pass background checks to obtain temporary relief from removal, and require everyone to play by the same rules, the Office of Management and Budget said in the official veto threat.

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Immigration Reform 2015: House Republicans Won't Fund Obama Immigrant Policies In Latest Department Of Homeland ...

Isabel Aguilar, right, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill about immigration reform. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP

A fresh clash between the House of Representatives and the White House over immigration reform has thrown future funding for the Department of Homeland Security into doubt, including funding for counter-terrorism programs.

Despite heightened security fears following attacks in Paris, Republicans placed themselves on a collision course with Barack Obama by passing five amendments to the homeland security budget that the White House has already said it would refuse to sign if they are attached.

Existing funding for the department expires at the end of February, after Congress separated it from the rest of the annual federal budget to give critics of immigration reform a chance to hitch their cause to what was seen as a must-pass legislation once Republicans took full control of both chambers.

But since then, terror attacks in France and Australia have raised the stakes by threatening to disrupt security funding at a time of high alert. The US State Department last week issued a worldwide caution that US citizens were at risk.

The White House, however, has shown no sign of being willing to blink in its standoff with Republicans over immigration.

The administration strongly opposes the addition of any amendments to the legislation that would place restrictions on the departments ability to set smart enforcement priorities focused on criminals, national security threats, and recent border crossers, hold undocumented immigrants accountable, and modernise the legal immigration system, said a White House policy statement on 12 January.

If presented to the president with objectionable restrictions, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto this bill.

Despite this, the Republican-controlled House passed five amendments on Wednesday morning by clear margins, including measures that would not just defund the presidents recent executive actions on undocumented adult migrants, but also unpick his earlier action on so-called dreamers, the US-raised children of such migrants.

Democrats slammed the tactic during debates leading up to the vote, claiming it was holding national security to ransom in pursuit of an entirely unrelated issued.

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Republicans offer Obama choice between counter-terror funding and immigration reform

House Republicans voted to try to block President Barack Obama from easing the deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants, including those brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

The 236-191 vote today goes beyond Republicans pledge to reverse the presidents November orders shielding about 5 million people in the U.S. from deportation.

The measure also seeks to block a 2012 Obama directive addressing young undocumented immigrants and a series of memos starting in 2011 that said terrorists and criminals should be deported first. House Speaker John Boehner and other leaders agreed to include those measures, which were sought by Tea Party-aligned members.

Boehner said during floor debate that Obamas actions were not a good-faith attempt at immigration reform.

We are dealing with a president who has ignored the people, ignored the Constitution, and even his own past statements, said Boehner, maintaining Obama had said at least 22 times he didnt have the authority to take such actions.

The vote is the start of negotiations with the Senate over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which expires at the end of February. Even Boehner allies say the broader measure has little chance of success because Senate Democrats are unlikely to support it and Obama would veto it.

Theres going to have to be an element of bipartisanship someplace to get anything done, said Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole, a Republican and an ally of Boehner. At least the initial positioning of bargaining will be what we want.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said in an e-mailed statement that the bill wont pass in his chamber. House Republicans are picking an unnecessary political fight that risks shutting down the Department of Homeland Security and endangering our security, he said.

Two Democrats, Brad Ashford of Nebraska and Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voted with 234 Republicans for the bill, while 10 Republicans voted with 181 Democrats against it.

One Republican who opposed the measure, Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, said in an interview, this is not going to happen because it wouldnt survive an Obama veto.

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House Votes to Undo Obama Immigration Changes on Spending Bill

As the 114th Congress begins and President Obama enters the final years of his presidency, the opportunity to marshal our political will to pass immigration reform should not be squandered.

Whatever the merits, the President's executive action to defer certain classes of deportations emerged from a sense of frustration over Congress' failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Ongoing dithering in Washington burdens the millions who live within the shadows of our society, seeking employment to pay rent and feed their families, send their children to schools and become active members of American society at large.

The previous Congress made some progress, with the U.S. Senate in 2013 passing, with strong bipartisan support, an historic bill that set the stage for a complete overhaul of America's broken immigration system. But the House did not adopt a companion bill.

Commitment among our own political leadership, essential to achieving substantive immigration reform, is only one piece of the equation.

Immigration transcends both domestic and foreign policy challenges, so it is critically important to understand why and how immigrants continue to strive to come, often at great personal risk, as well as the government policies in the countries they are fleeing. Concerned governments should take responsibility for their roles and cooperate at the highest levels.

In this regard, it was highly significant that El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras recently announced, at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington, D.C., together with the U.S., the creation of a joint initiative, the Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle. The alliance aims to provide greater economic opportunities, enhance security and improve governance, and make public institutions more transparent and accountable in each of the three Central American countries. This initiative can potentially curtail the emigration flow, which today exceeds the number of Mexicans crossing the U.S. border. Due to high crime and poverty, almost one in 10 citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras has emigrated, mostly to the U.S., according to the IADB.

"Our countries are linked by family, friendship, by trade, by simple geography," said Vice President Joe Biden at the Alliance launch.

The triangle development plan follows upon the spike over the summer in the number of undocumented minors coming into the U.S., more than 54,000, the latest manifestation of a ceaseless flow of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. through its southern border. The large numbers of minors reflects a new level of desperation. What parents would knowingly send their kids on such an unknown, risky journey? And though media and others labeled them unaccompanied, they surely were not alone, but handled by "coyotes" and other shady agents.

Diplomats, policy experts, scholars, journalists, activists and government officials have come together with the American Jewish Committee and the Baker Institute at Rice University in Houston this week to discuss not only the critical need for immigration reform but also the shared responsibility for developing and implementing effective policies.

Indecision is harmful and unproductive. Washington must not hesitate further in passing comprehensive immigration reform legislation that creates a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented, provides opportunities for them to succeed and reunite with family members left behind. At the same time, the U.S. should deepen cooperation with Latin American allies to improve their own economies and security to convince those contemplating emigration to instead stay put.

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Maybe a step closer to immigration reform - Houston Chronicle