The fates of hundreds of thousands of young immigrants hang in the balance as lawmakers once again rush to accomplish in hours what has eluded Congress for decades: a way forward on immigration.

A bloc of moderate House Republicans are challenging far-right conservatives – and their leadership – in the latest effort to secure protections for Dreamers, the nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants protected from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program that Donald Trump terminated.

Their rebellion has set the stage for a dramatic showdown over a politically perilous issue that has riven the Republican party – and, some worry, could cost them their majority control in this year’s midterms. House Republican leaders have scheduled a private, two-hour conference to discuss the issue on Thursday morning. Their goal is to find common ground where there has long been none and, in doing so, prevent moderates from forcing a series of immigration votes over the objections of leadership.

The centrists leading the fight – typically reliable partners of Republican leadership – say they have grown frustrated by years of inaction on immigration. Now, as many of them face competitive re-elections in districts with Hispanic constituencies, they are demanding action on immigration reform.

On the other side are the hardliners who have for years refused to compromise on immigration proposals. They worry that passing legislation to protect Dreamers, which some deride as “amnesty”, risks demoralizing conservative voters who zealously support Trump’s “zero tolerance” approach to immigration months before the midterm elections.

Somewhere in the middle, at risk of being bypassed by both factions, stands Paul Ryan, the outgoing speaker of the House trying to hold the party together as his power drains away.



“Our members are earnest and sincere in trying to understand each other’s perspectives,” Ryan told reporters on Wednesday. “I really do believe that there’s a sweet spot here.”

But on the eve of Thursday’s meeting, members involved in negotiating a compromise plan left the speaker’s lobby without striking a deal.

“We’re taking steps forward, not backwards,” Mark Meadows, the chairman of the arch-conservative House freedom caucus, told reporters after the meeting on Wednesday. “Hopefully what we’ll see is the objections get smaller and less of a hurdle in the hours to come. We’re down to hours – not weeks.”

Should Republicans fail to reach a consensus, moderates have vowed to move ahead with a rarely used parliamentary procedure known as a “discharge petition”. The legislative maneuver would compel the House to take up four immigration bills. As of Wednesday, the petition remained just three signatures shy of the 218 needed to get a simple majority and propel the process to the floor.



“We are as close as we’ve ever been” to a deal on an immigration bill, Carlos Curbelo, the Florida Republican leading the centrists’ effort, told reporters after a round of negotiations on Wednesday. But, he said, the moderate coalition would continue to seek the remaining signatures for a discharge petition should their discussions falter on Thursday.

Nearly two dozen Republicans have signed the petition. And all Democrats have offered their signatures except for Henry Cuellar of Texas, who remains concerned that the process will pave the way for the construction of a border wall, which he opposes.



Activists and Daca recipients protest against the Trump administration’s policies during a demonstration in New York in March. Photograph: Amr Alfiky/Reuters

A clash over immigration has loomed over Congress for months, since Trump ended the Daca program last September. The president implored lawmakers to find a solution and provided them with a framework that is unpalatable to Democrats and moderate Republicans. In exchange for protecting Dreamers, Trump has demanded funding for a border wall and new restriction to legal immigration.

An attempt to address the issuefoundered in the Senate, when the chamber rejected four immigration proposals in February. The plan that met Trump’s immigration framework received the least support.

Courts have ordered the administration to temporarily restart the program while they consider legal challenges to the president’s action.

How to address the legal status of immigrants has emerged as a key sticking point in the negotiations, members said. Moderates have advocated for a “pathway to citizenship” for the young immigrants who meet certain criteria while members of the far-right freedom caucus have long derided the concession as “amnesty”.



Even if the House overcomes the myriad of stumbling blocks to pass immigration legislation, the path forward would largely depend on the president’s response. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, has said he would only bring up an immigration bill if Trump would sign it.



Tom Cole, a Republican congressman from Oklahoma, worries that forcing a series of votes on immigration could result in the House narrowly passing a bill supported largely by Democrats that is too generous to satisfy Trump’s demands.

“It’s not going to do us any good in the end to pass out of here something with a minority of Republicans that is certain to not get through the Senate, and if it did, to be vetoed by the president,” Cole said. “It might help some individual members but it’s not going to help the Republican team.”

Several House Republicans said they were waiting to see what happens during the meeting – described as a “family discussion” – before deciding whether they could sign on to any specific immigration proposal.



Yet Cole remains optimistic that after years of deadlock, a solution is within reach.

“When you put people together who are on the same team, more times than not they’ll find a way forward,” Cole said. “Now maybe they can’t. A lot will depend on what happens in that meeting.”