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House Speaker John A. Boehner has emerged as the key figure of immigration reform legislation this year, and he has sent dramatically mixed signals about whether Congress will approve a bill.

At home in Ohio last month, he seemed to mock his fellow House Republicans by telling a local Rotary Club that they think immigration reform is too politically difficult. But returning to Washington last week, Mr. Boehner said the problem wasnt his troops, but rather a trust deficit with President Obama.

SPECIAL COVERAGE: Immigration Reform

Advocates and opponents of immigration reform now say they dont know where the House speaker stands on the issue as time runs short before November elections.

He has been very consistent with his inconsistencies on immigration, so nobody knows what to expect or what to believe on this topic, said Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican who has long opposed granting legal status to illegal immigrants.

He said talk of legalization is encouraging more illegal immigrants to try to enter the U.S.

Mr. Boehner replaces the president as the key figure on immigration reform. Mr. Obama long pledged to tackle the issue during his first year in the White House, and his political stock among Hispanics sank when he failed to follow through.

After the president helped shepherd a bipartisan deal through the Senate last year, chiefly by staying out of negotiations, attention shifted to the House and to Mr. Boehner.

Unlike many others in his party, the Ohio Republican seems to want to pass a legalization bill.

Two days after Mr. Obama won re-election in 2012, Mr. Boehner announced that a comprehensive immigration deal would be a top bipartisan priority for Republicans looking to find areas of agreement with the president.

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As key to immigration reform in the House, Speaker Boehner sends mixed signals

Since immigrants are disproportionately poorly educated, any overhaul needs to focus on bringing in fewer but more talented people.

Reuters

At a Hollywood conference on innovation on Friday, Vice President Joe Biden credited constant and overwhelming immigration for American creativity. Obviously, immigrants have contributed hugely to Americas legendary dynamism. From Alexander Hamilton to Sergey Brin, people born off these shores have founded new companies, invented new products, and disseminated new ideas.

All the most enthusiastic tributes to immigration as a source of renewal are true.

But those tributes are not the whole truth.

Since 1965, American immigration policy has tilted further and further in favor of the poorly educated and the unskilled. In consequenceand with full acknowledgement of the many, many spectacular individual success storiesAmerican immigration policy in the aggregate has degraded the countrys skill levels and pushed the United States down to the bottom of the developed world in literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving.

A new OECD report delivers grim news about how poorly Americans score in the skills necessary to a modern economy: Larger proportions of adults in the United States than in other [advanced] countries have poor literacy and numeracy skills, and the proportion of adults with poor skills in problem solving is slightly larger than average, despite the relatively high educational attainments among adults in the United States.

In literacy, for example, the OECD graded populations into five categories, 1 and 2 being the lowest. One in six American adults scored below level 2 for literacy, as compared to one in 20 adults in Japan. Nearly one in three scored below level 2 for numeracy. One in three scored at the lowest level for problem-solving in an advanced technical environment.

Why did Americans score so uniquely badly?

Immigration isnt the whole answer, but it is the largestand fastest-growingpart of the explanation of the deskilling of the American labor force.

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Immigration Reform Isn't Just About NumbersIt's About Skills, Too

By Andrew Rafferty

The White House used Cinco de Mayo celebrations on Monday to continue the push for immigration reform and slam Republicans in the House for blocking a comprehensive reform bill passed by the Senate last year.

"So far, the Republicans in the House have refused to let meaningful immigration reform to move forward at all, Obama said during a reception at the White House. We know there are Republicans in the House who want to do the right thing."

The president called on those in attendance to pressure Congress in the coming months to address an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, saying it is time the GOP "catch up with the rest of the country."

The Senate passed an immigration bill in 2013, but the Republican-led House has failed to move on the legislation. House Speaker John Boehner has said Congress cannot trust the administration to implement the law as passed, citing changes to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act as proof.

Earlier in the day, Vice President Joe Biden even more forcefully called for reform at a breakfast highlighting the success of Hispanic Americans.

Its time for [Boehner] to stand up, stand up and not let the minorityI think its a minorityof the Republican Party in the House keep us from moving in a way that will change the circumstances for millions and millions of lives, Biden said.

First published May 5 2014, 3:40 PM

Andrew Rafferty has been a political reporter for NBCNews.com since 2013. Rafferty writes and reports on politics for the web, and shoots and produces video for all NBC platforms.

Prior to joining NBCNews.com, Rafferty was a campaign reporter covering the 2012 presidential election. Rafferty was on the road for both the Republican primaries and general election, providing content for both the web and television.

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White House Uses Cinco de Mayo to Renew Push for Immigration Reform

Renee Ellmers is in a highly unusual position for a House Republican: She is the only GOP incumbent facing a primary challenge centered on her support for immigration reform.

The North Carolina Republican is one of a handful of House GOP lawmakers to publicly advocate legalizing the millions of immigrants who are here illegally. Her views sparked a Republican challenge from economic commentator Frank Roche, who is skewering Ellmers for favoring amnesty.

Most observers think Ellmers a nurse and former tea party favorite is likely to win the intraparty fight on Tuesday. Still, reform advocates, particularly those on the center-right, are closely watching her race as a test case of how much the politically charged issue of immigration will matter in GOP primaries. Republicans had feared that conservatives, stoked by grass-roots anger and help from outside groups, would descend on the districts of members who sided with the reformers.

(ELECTION CENTRAL: Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio primaries)

But in a surprise to some, Ellmers fight has been the exception to the rule in this years House GOP primary contests. Despite conservative threats, the slew of anti-immigration primary challenges for the most part simply havent materialized. Of course, Democrats could still badger Republicans on immigration come November.

Filing deadlines for more than 80 percent of sitting House Republicans elapsed as of the end of April. And advocates closely tracking GOP primaries could name only Ellmers race as one where an incumbent House Republican is facing a primary precisely over his or her immigration stance.

Reps. Sam Johnson and John Carter of Texas two Republican negotiators in a bipartisan House group that painstakingly tried to negotiate a House immigration bill with a pathway to citizenship breezed through their March 4 primaries without much being made of their advocacy. Johnson walloped his challenger by 80 percent, and Carter didnt even have an opponent.

(Also on POLITICO: Little hope for Keystone vote)

The Mark Zuckerberg-backed advocacy group FWD.us argued earlier this year that only one incumbent congressional Republican lost to a primary opponent primarily because of immigration in the past decade: then-Utah Rep. Chris Cannon to Rep. Jason Chaffetz in 2008.

Its essentially a nonissue in most of these races, said Jeremy Robbins, the executive director of the Michael Bloomberg-backed Partnership for a New American Economy, which supports immigration reform. But he added: It concerns me any time that someone who is very, very good on this issue is challenged.

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The race where immigration matters

11 - Immigration Reform
The rights of legal and illegal aliens to employment and to medical and educational services are debated by U.S. Court of Appeals judge Arlin Adams, Notre Da...

By: David A.

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11 - Immigration Reform - Video