Steve King isn't sure he likes where negotiators like Raul Labrador are going. | AP Photos Right lashes out on immigration

A pocket of conservatives is lashing out privately and publicly against broad immigration reform and could seriously complicate any momentum for a House deal.

The blowback began in earnest Wednesday afternoon on Capitol Hill, where a meeting of the Republican Study Committee turned into a group gripe about the direction in which a bipartisan House group of immigration negotiators is heading. Iowa Rep. Steve King spoke out against the speed with which Republicans are changing their tone on long-held positions on immigration policy.


Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador, an RSC member who is negotiating an immigration bill with Democrats, spoke to the group about what he called “rumors” about the proposal’s substance, assuring the group that tough border security and other issues important to Republicans will be key components of any compromise.

( See also: Full coverage of immigration reform)

But as very conservative members push against an overhaul , the RSC is mulling how it will try to influence the immigration process. Saddled with a membership that has a wide range of opinions, the group is likely to pick a process-based fight and will press Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to move an overhaul of immigration laws through committees and to allow amendments on the floor.

“Having an open-rule process, going through regular order has always been important to us,” RSC Chairman Steve Scalise of Louisiana said in an interview.

The conservative divide and the cacophony of discordant voices might not derail the legislation, but they add another layer of challenge for the Republican leadership as it tries to move on an issue that it considers key to the country and the modernization of the GOP. Not only can lawmakers like King and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann throw off the party’s message, they are money-magnet firebrands who enjoy limited internal influence in the House but command large external followings.

( Also on POLITICO: Rubio goes all-in on immigration bill)

The discomfort on the right explains why Republican leaders see it as a top priority to quell opposing conservative voices on immigration.

It’s been tough to contain the bewilderment about the Senate and House immigration packages, since the negotiators have been working in secret. The Senate Gang of Eight expects to introduce its bill next week, and the House is likely to follow suit. Both packages would create a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants. The House’s pathway includes a 10-year wait for a green card, followed by a five-year pathway to full citizenship.

( PHOTOS: 20 quotes on immigration reform)

Immigration presents an unusually tough challenge for the GOP. Despite the needs of the national party, more than 100 individual House members are from districts without any real Hispanic presence: They don’t need immigration reform to win reelection and may not care about the national party’s larger problems.

The immigration debate has reverberations for the entire 113th Congress. If Boehner were to be seen as moving against conservative forces, he could engender ill will, which would be unhelpful as he tries to reform entitlements and raise the debt ceiling later this summer.

Scalise is staking out smart political ground: focusing on border security while urging Boehner to follow the regular order he proimsed.

Indeed, regular order seems to be a unifying point for conservatives. Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert cautioned Wednesday that if Boehner were to fail to move a bill through regular order, “the speaker would make himself a liar.”

“There would be a revolt among Republicans,” added Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California.

Their fears aren’t unfounded. Boehner on Thursday declined to commit to putting the bill through the regular process.

“There’s a number of committees that are working on this issue now,” Boehner said. “How we will consider it — there have been no decisions. Whether we’ll go first or the Senate will go first, it’s hard to gauge at this point. I’m continuing to urge members on both sides of the aisle to come together and address what I think is a very big issue in our country.”

But for the far right, it’s not only process. After remaining relatively quiet on the issue, conservatives are now ready to fight on the substance of immigration reform.

Simply put, these Republicans think their party is walking down a dangerous path.

“[The] momentum was started by people who wanted to make an excuse, I believe, for the election results they promised to be otherwise,” King told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve held our powder dry and decided to come forward now because we’re seeing the inertia and we’re concerned about having this wash over us and not have the opportunity for constitutional conservatives in this country and in this Congress to have their voices heard.”

Conservatives take issue with the underpinnings of both the House and Senate proposals: that 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country should be given some kind of pathway to citizenship.

“We should not be talking about any kind of pathway to citizenship if we were serious about solving the problem of illegal immigration. … We should only be talking about securing our borders,” Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) said.

It’s easy to brush off the conservative protests as a tiny island of resistance amid loud cries to reform the nation’s immigration laws. But it speaks to a larger problem for Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

It’s going to be tough to speak with one voice.

“When we talk about illegal aliens, we are talking about a very small number of foreigners who as their first act have chosen to disregard and disobey the laws of our land,” Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks said.

Gohmert added: “I don’t think pandering is ever attractive to anyone who is looking for a party to believe in.”

Some in the party want to solve the problem much the same way that Mitt Romney did in 2012.

Rohrabacher said: “You make sure that people who are here illegally do not get jobs, and they don’t get benefits and they will go home. It’s called attrition. I don’t happen to believe in deportation. If you make sure they don’t get jobs and they don’t get benefits, I mean Mitt [Romney] called it self-deportation, but it’s not; it’s just attrition. They’ll go home on their own.”

CORRECTION: A quote attributed to Steve King should have been attributed to Lou Barletta.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Elizabeth Titus @ 04/12/2013 08:10 AM CORRECTION: A quote attributed to Steve King should have been attributed to Lou Barletta.