A new challenge confronts immigration reform proponents: the debt ceiling. Immigration reform's No. 1 enemy

Immigration reform advocates have a new enemy: the congressional calendar.

Fall’s fiscal fights have lined up in a way that could delay immigration reform until 2014, multiple senior House Republican leadership aides tell POLITICO, imperiling the effort’s prospects before the midterm elections.


The mid-October debt ceiling deadline — an earlier-than-expected target laid out Monday by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew — is changing the House GOP leadership’s plans to pass immigration bills that month.

“If we have to deal with the debt limit earlier, it doesn’t change the overall dynamics of the debate, but — just in terms of timing — it might make it harder to find time for immigration bills in October,” one House Republican leadership aide said.

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That’s not the only scheduling challenge. There are fewer than 40 congressional working days until the end of 2013 — the unofficial deadline for passing immigration reform — and they’ll present some of the most politically challenging votes for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. It will be difficult to add immigration reform to the list, senior aides say.

Government funding runs dry on Sept. 30. The nine days the House is in session that month will be crowded with the debate over the continuing resolution to keep the government operating. The GOP leadership will have to reconcile the screams from conservatives who want to use the bill to defund Obamacare with their own desire to avoid a government shutdown. Of course, anything the House approves would need to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, which will ignore attempts to weaken the law.

Immigration reform isn’t certain to die if it slips into 2014, some in GOP leadership say. But major progress must be made in 2013 as it would be too difficult for the House to chart a course in 2014, an election year.

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At a fundraiser in Idaho on Monday, Speaker John Boehner predicted a “whale of a fight” over the debt ceiling. That skirmish will surface in October. The House is in session for 14 days during that month, but there is certain to be a good deal of debate over passing a bill that would extend the nation’s borrowing authority.

GOP leadership is mulling its initial negotiating position, which is sure to include some changes to entitlements, energy policy and the health care law. Boehner’s leadership team also seems open to discussing ways to soften the blow of the sequester in October, which would add yet another explosive issue to the mix.

The White House refuses to negotiate with Republicans over the debt limit, leaving little clarity on how the standoff gets resolved — and when.

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“Congress has already authorized funding, committed us to make expenditures,” Lew told CNBC Tuesday. “We’re now in the place where the only question is will we pay the bills that the United States has incurred. The only way to do that is for Congress to act — for it to act quickly.”

A senior administration official said Tuesday that the increasingly crowded fall calendar was why Obama pressed the House to deal with immigration before the August recess. But the Republican leaders need to make time for it, the official said, and they should want to do it sooner rather than later because the pressure from the president and others isn’t going to let up.

But the scarce legislative days and the fiscal battles will be welcome to some House Republicans squeamish about voting on immigration reform. There is little support for passing the kind of comprehensive bill approved by the Senate. But even the piecemeal approach being pushed by the House leadership has its fair share of skeptics in the GOP conference.

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November could provide a window for immigration reform — but two dynamics may interfere.

The debt-ceiling deadline could slip to November if tax receipts come in stronger than expected. If Congress votes on the debt ceiling during the eight-day November session, the Republican leadership is skeptical that it would be easy to turn around and vote on even a pared-back version of immigration reform.

The will just won’t be there, some aides say. A similar situation played out earlier this year, when Boehner delayed in January a vote on Hurricane Sandy relief because it came too soon after the tough vote when Congress raised taxes to resolve the fiscal cliff.

December will likely bring another government funding debate. The current plan for September is to pass a continuing resolution that lasts until Dec. 15, setting up another year-end spending fight. The House is scheduled to be in session for just eight days in December before leaving for the holidays.

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Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, said the new debt limit deadline “is likely to push consideration of immigration to the latter part of October at the earliest.”

But Sharry and Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, said the House won’t be able to use the fiscal fights as an excuse.

“There are some in leadership who are going to look for any reason not to act,” Kelley said. “There will be a space where this issue is going to have to move. It’s not going to go away because other matters.”