Norquist pushes immigration reform to Hill GOP

Conservatives backing immigration reform aren’t 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.


“We all know the struggles our broken immigration system causes our nation,” Norquist, along with the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s 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 Obama’s 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 Forum’s board. It’s particularly noteworthy that Zoeller is involved, considering Indiana is part of a lawsuit from two dozen states, led by Texas, that argues Obama’s 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.