Sen. Paul Ryan, whose team has been working behind the scenes to squash the effort, has personally urged the group to hold off and wait until the high court rules. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Republicans move to force DACA vote in defiance of Ryan A faction of centrist lawmakers hopes to pressure GOP leaders and the president into reaching an immigration deal.

Centrist House Republicans are defying Speaker Paul Ryan and planning to force a floor vote shielding Dreamers from deportation, a last-ditch attempt at securing a deal on immigration.

By filing a discharge petition Wednesday morning, the five centrists who work closely on immigration issues are hoping to pressure President Donald Trump and GOP leaders into working with Democrats to codify Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Trump ended the Obama-era program in March, but the courts intervened and now DACA will be considered by the Supreme Court this fall.


Ryan, whose team has been working behind the scenes to squash the effort, has personally urged the group to hold off and wait until the high court rules. GOP leaders say the middle of an election year is not the time to get caught up in a controversial immigration fight that divides the party and the nation.

But centrist Republicans are sick of waiting, arguing that DACA recipients cannot be left in limbo.

"There are million-plus men and women who don't have certainty," said Republican Rep. Will Hurd, who has 120 miles of border in his south Texas district. "These are men and women who have contributed to our economy... to our history... These are people who are Americans and they need a permanent legislative fix."

Hurd joined with Reps. Carlos Curbelo and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida and Jeff Denham and David Valadao of California to file the discharge petition. Should it receive 218 signatories, it would trigger a series of votes on several different immigration proposals. If every Democrat supports the idea, which sources said is likely, 25 Republicans would have to break ranks and join them to trigger the votes.

The moderates say it's only a matter of time. Within just a few hours of filing, 17 Republicans had signed on or were about to do so. Ryan was seen talking to another centrist, GOP Rep. Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania, on the House floor Wednesday. After the conversation, Costello signed the petition anyway.

Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Curbelo, Denham, Valadao and Hurd had been discussing a discharge petition for a while. This week they picked up the backing of Diaz-Balart, an influential GOP voice on immigration, who had been working hand-in-hand with Ryan and the White House on immigration.

Diaz-Balart has long wanted Congress to codify DACA but had been unwilling to go against the speaker until now. His support is likely to sway other centrist Republicans frustrated by the lack of action on Dreamers to sign the petition.

"We've been working on this for a long time... Nothing has been able to get to the floor," he said in a brief interview. "This is a way to force a vote... to add fire. This issue can't continue to linger."

The centrists have been keeping Ryan and the White House apprised of their intentions. They've argued that Ryan can use the opportunity to get an up or down vote in the House on Trump's DACA proposal. The White House has backed a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers in return for limits to family immigration, funding for a border wall and an end to the diversity visa lottery program.

That's not a good enough sell for GOP leaders. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is close with fellow Golden State colleagues Denham and Valadao, threw cold water on the effort.

“I don’t believe in discharge petitions," he told reporters. “Why not? Because you are turning the floor over. I think it is better to use the legislative process.”

Rep. Mia Love of Utah, one of the petition signers, said that's exactly the point. If leadership won't allow an immigration vote, she argued during a news conference, "then people that have voted for me to represent them will not have a voice."

Retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) acknowledged that signing a discharge petition is unusual. She said she'd never signed one while her party has been in power during in her 28 years as a lawmaker — until now.

"But that tells you what a sense of urgency, what a sense of priority the Dreamer legislation has for all of us," said the Cuban American.

The group also argues that Republicans should use their GOP majority while they have it and get something in return for a DACA fix, like Trump's wall with Mexico. Democrats stand a solid chance of taking back the House in the midterm elections, which would make it even less likely that Trump would be able to build his wall.

Democrats are also unlikely to want to cut a deal after the election if they take back the House. They will know they have more leverage and seek to use it.

Even if something passes the House, it's unclear what the Senate would do. The upper chamber spent months trying to strike a bipartisan deal on DACA but ultimately fell short.

Indeed, a vote on the issue will put Republicans in a difficult spot, particularly those in swing-districts torn between their more moderate constituencies and the desires of GOP leaders.

If 218 signatures are collected, the discharge petition would trigger votes on Democratic, Republican and bipartisan fixes to DACA, with a “queen-of-the-Hill” approach. That means the proposal getting the highest number of votes over 218 would be adopted by the House. If there is a tie, the last legislation voted on would be adopted.

One of the proposals receiving a vote would be the conservative DACA fix of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) that would curb legal immigration and crack down on sanctuary cities and child migrants, in addition to building a border wall and beefing up enforcement. The plan, which would also require employers to verify the legal status of employees, is more restrictive than the White House plan, and some Republicans would oppose it.

Other bills that would receive a vote include the Democrats’ favored DREAM Act, which would codify the program and provide a pathway to citizenship for young adults who migrated to the United States as children. In addition, two bipartisan bills that include additional border security in exchange for DACA protections would also be taken up.