House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday that his his Republican caucus will agree on a framework for immigration reform at a retreat this week.
“On Thursday, we’ll have a discussion about immigration reform,” Boehner said during a news conference on Capitol Hill. “We’re going to outline our standards, principles of immigration reform and have a conversation with our members.”
Boehner didn’t go into policy specifics. Reform advocates have been clamoring for a years for a comprehensive overhaul that would provide a path to citizenship, or at least legal status, for millions of immigrants in the country illegally. Their hopes were briefly lifted when the Democratic-controlled Senate passed a reform package last year, but that bill died in the GOP-controlled House. Republicans have signaled in recent months that they will take up immigration reform in smaller pieces, rather than in one big bill.