WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration advocates angry that legislation has stalled in Congress are increasingly focusing their ire at one person: Eric Cantor, the House majority leader.
More so than House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, Cantor is seen as responsible for the House's election-year failure to act on immigration 11 months after the Senate passed a wide-ranging bill with billions for border security and a path to citizenship for the 11.5 million immigrants in the country illegally. The issue is a top priority for President Barack Obama.
"Eric Cantor is the No. 1 guy standing between the American people and immigration reform," Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a pro-immigrant group, said on a conference call Wednesday organized to criticize Cantor.
The Virginia Republican, widely seen as having ambitions of being speaker one day, faces a tea party primary challenge June 10 and has hardened his stance on immigration.
Cantor and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, fellow Virginian Bob Goodlatte, announced last summer that they were developing legislation offering citizenship to immigrants brought illegally to this country as kids. The bill never appeared.
And according to Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., Cantor committed last year to helping him bring legislation to a vote granting citizenship to immigrants brought here illegally as kids who serve in the military. No agreement was reached, and Cantor's office announced Friday that Denham's measure would not even be allowed to come to the floor this year as part of the annual defense bill, which the House is considering this week.
Denham said the announcement took him by surprise after talking with Cantor earlier in the day, and he had no explanation.
Cantor's spokesman, Doug Heye, said that Cantor continues to support Denham's bill, the ENLIST Act, as well as legislation allowing citizenship to kids brought illegally, and conversations are ongoing. Heye said Cantor never committed to bringing the ENLIST Act to a vote, just to working on it.
Political considerations play no role, Heye said.