Rep. Jeff Duncan said some lawmakers wouldn't vote for the bill without a measure mandating all companies certify the legal status of their workers. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo GOP flails ahead of immigration vote Despite furious horse-trading among moderate and conservative Republicans, the legislation appears likely to fail in the House.

A last-minute effort to salvage a House GOP immigration bill appeared to flounder, amid unyielding opposition from the far right.

Desperate to flip conservative votes, centrist House Republicans offered to add a controversial provision requiring the use of E-Verify, which mandates all companies certify the legal status of their workers.


But when it didn’t appear to pick up votes, moderates decided not to add the provision after all.

The House is still set to vote on the bill Wednesday — and it’s increasingly expected to fail in a landslide, with many Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition.

“Without E-Verify in the bill, [some members] couldn’t get to ‘yes,’” said Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, one Freedom Caucus member who pushed for the mandate’s addition.

However, asked whether conservatives would back the bill if it’s added, he demurred. “We’ll see,” he said, adding that he also didn’t know yet how he would vote.

Indeed, other Freedom Caucus members, including Reps. Dave Brat of Virginia, Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Jody Hice of Georgia, said they would still oppose the measure if E-Verify is included.

House Republicans huddled Tuesday morning to discuss the proposal, a more than 100-page amendment released late Monday night. Speaker Paul Ryan told lawmakers they needed to determine whether adding the amendment to the bill would help or hurt their vote count, though senior Republicans expect the bill to fail either way.

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The legislation would fund President Donald Trump’s border wall and curb legal immigration while providing a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

It largely aligns with Trump’s proposed immigration framework and is the product of weeks of negotiation between Republicans.

But even Republican Study Committee Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.), who tried to help bridge the divide between moderates and conservatives, said he was not sure how he would vote if E-Verify were added. He said he wanted to hear from the president, and he urged Trump to tweet his thoughts on the bill.

Trump last week, after promising Republicans he’d have their backs “1,000 percent,” told House Republicans to essentially give up trying until after the midterm elections.

If the bill fails, House GOP leaders are likely to put forward a narrower measure tackling the family separation crisis at the border, which the Trump administration is still struggling to address. Another volatile immigration issue was also thrown into the mix Tuesday when the Supreme Court voted to uphold Trump’s travel ban. After the ruling, Trump vowed to “fight for an immigration system that serves the national interests of the United States and its citizens.”

The latest round of negotiations over the broader immigration package underscores the fruitless back-and-forth between the GOP’s factions, as lawmakers struggled to come up with a deal. Recently, moderates have offered to include more and more conservative provisions into the bill, but they’re still unable to secure commitments from hard-liners.

Conservatives say they want to ensure that decades-long flow of illegal immigration is finally stemmed, especially if they’re going to back a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. They’ve set a high bar to back the bill — perhaps too high, some moderates say.

The addition of E-Verify would have caused problems for centrist Republicans who hail from agricultural districts whose farmers could be hit hard by the mandate. The latest amendment would also include a new agriculture worker program to try to ease centrists’ concerns. But some moderates, like Rep. David Valadao from California’s Central Valley, weren’t sure they could support the bill if E-Verify is included.

“They’ve made modifications. They continue to make modifications,” he said. “It’s getting closer to where I can support it. I’m not a solid ‘yes’ yet.”

Moderate Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo, another skeptic of the E-Verify program, also seemed uncomfortable with the addition — though he suggested he’d accept it if it picked up votes.

“If we can get a product to the Senate, that is very important to me,” the Florida Republican said. “The question is: Is there growth [in the number of votes] or not.”

GOP leaders spent Tuesday trying to gauge whether E-Verify would win them votes. Ultimately, they decided it would not, and Rep. Jeff Denham, lead moderate negotiator, made the call not to add the provision to the bill.

