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After House GOP leaders rolled out their immigration principles last week, many Republicans struck back, arguing embracing reform nowisfollybecause, well, #OBUMMER and #OBUMMER. They said acting now could trample on gains Republicans will enjoy from Obamacares certain collapse and that the President cant be trusted to honor any immigrationdeal.

Paul Ryans interview on ABC yesterday offers a clue on how GOP leaders will try to navigate around these objections. And in the process it neatly illustrates the central unknowns about House Republican thinking on the issue, the resolution of which will decide whether reform happens or dies. Heres the key quote:

Heres the issue that all Republicans agree on we dont trust the president to enforce the law. So if you actually look at the standards that the Republican leadership put out, which is security first, first we have to secure the border, have interior enforcement, which is a worker verification system, a visa tracking program. Those things have to be in law, in practice and independently verified before the rest of the law can occur. So its a security force first, non-amnesty approach.

Askedif Republicans could embrace reform Obama could sign, Ryan said: That is clearly in doubt. It depends on whether theyre willing to actually secure the border.

The important thing to understand about Ryans quotes is theirstrategic vagueness. When Ryan says security and enforcement the meeting of border metrics, E-Verify,etc. must be verified before the rest of the law can occur, hes deliberatelyfudging the dilemma Republicans face. Will the 11 million get some sort of temporary or provisional legal/work status before all these conditions are met? Or is even that automatically amnesty and therefore a nonstarter?

Last week on MSNBC, Ryan drew the curtain back a bit on this debate, revealing that Republicans were contemplating a probationary status that would allow the undocumented to work while security measures were implemented. (Republicanswill continueto call whatever form oflegalization they are contemplatingprobation, because legalization is amnesty.) That drew some howls from the right. So superficially, Ryans quote on ABC appears to be about setting down a harder line: Nothing in the rest of the law can proceed until security and enforcement metrics are met.

In reality, though, this quote is vague. Indeed, the very idea of a probationary status is all about creating a provisionalway for the undocumented to work before security metrics are met andthe rest of the law proceeds. Ryan surely knows Republicans will have to cross that bridge if reform is going to pass, because the alternative would leave millions in legal limbo for literally years while billions and billions are spent realizing those security metrics.Its hard to see how Dems who will be needed to pass anything out of the House could ever accept this.

The unknown is whether GOP leaders will ultimately decide that embracing some form of legalization, or probation before onerous security metrics are met is too hard, giventhe politics inside the House GOP caucus. This is the context for understanding the real meaning of the Obama cant be trusted talking point.

Either Ryan knows he must say this to get mainstream conservatives to even listen to him about immigration its a way to reassure them of his best intentionseven asGOP leadersseriously grapple with how to get to someform of legalization. (Byron York floats a version of this theory here.) Or, if Republicans decide they cant get to that point, it will become the excuse for killing reform: Obama cant be trusted to enforce the law executive orders Obamacare Benghazi etc. etc. so we cant embrace any form of legalization,until all of our security metrics are met.

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Morning Plum: GOP may kill immigration reform because #OBUMMER