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Boehner is said to back change on immigration

WASHINGTON — House Speaker John A. Boehner has signaled he may embrace a series of limited changes to the nation’s immigration laws in the coming months, giving advocates for change new hope that 2014 might be the year a bitterly divided Congress reaches a compromise to overhaul the sprawling system.

Boehner, Republican of Ohio, has recently hired Rebecca Tallent, a longtime immigration adviser to Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who has long backed broad immigration changes.

Advocates for an overhaul say the hiring as well as comments by Boehner critical of Tea Party opposition to the recent budget deal in Congress indicate he is serious about revamping the immigration system despite deep reservations from conservative Republicans.

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Aides to Boehner said this week that he was committed to what he calls “step by step” moves to revise immigration laws, which they have declined to specify.

But other House Republicans, who see an immigration overhaul as essential to wooing the Hispanic voters crucial to the party’s fortunes in the 2016 presidential election, said they could move on separate bills that would fast-track legalization for agricultural laborers, increase the number of visas for high-tech workers, and provide an opportunity for young immigrants who came to the country illegally as children to become US citizens.

Although the legislation would fall far short of the demands being made by immigration activists, it could provide the beginnings of a deal.

For Boehner, hiring Tallent suggests a new commitment to confronting an issue that has long divided the Republican Party. Tallent is a veteran of more than a decade of congressional immigration battles and fought, ultimately unsuccessfully, for comprehensive overhauls of the immigration system in 2003 and 2007.

Although Boehner’s aides say she was hired to carry out his views and not her own, advocates of immigration change say the only reason for Boehner to have hired Tallent is a desire to make a deal this year.

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In addition, immigration advocates say that Boehner’s end-of-year rant against Tea Party groups — in which he said they had “lost all credibility” — is an indicator of what he will do this year on immigration. The groups are the same ones that hope to rally the Republican base against an immigration compromise, and while Boehner cannot say so publicly, he will have more room to maneuver on the issue if he feels free to disregard the arguments from those organizations.

Aides continue to say that Boehner remains opposed to a single, comprehensive bill like the Senate-passed measure that would tighten border security, increase legal immigration, and offer an eventual path to US citizenship for an estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. Conservatives are staunchly opposed to sweeping legislation that would offer a path to citizenship.

“The American people are skeptical of big, comprehensive bills, and frankly, they should be,” Boehner told reporters recently. “The only way to make sure immigration reform works this time is to address these complicated issues one step at a time. I think doing so will give the American people confidence that we’re dealing with these issues in a thoughtful way and a deliberative way.”

Nonetheless, immigration activists say they are hopeful that politics may ultimately lead Boehner to ignore conservative voices who oppose a path to citizenship. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012, took a hard line on immigration and won only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote — a key reason for his loss to President Obama.

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