While the Senate's "Gang of Eight" has been getting all the attention for its efforts on a bipartisan immigration reform bill, a similar group has emerged in the House of Representatives, and they seem to be making progress.
Republicans Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, Raul Labrador of Idaho and Sam Johnson of Texas are working with Democrats in the House to craft a bill similar to the one taking shape in the Senate.
Their path is more difficult, due to the demographics of the House. Democrats control the Senate, but Republicans are still in charge of the House, and many of them are conservative members of the Tea Party. Others are simply afraid of primary challengers from the right who will surely materialize if they support a measure that could legalize nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants.
House members must run for reelection every two years, so primaries are always a concern, and action is taken with an eye toward the next election. Senators serve for six years, so only a third of them will be running for reelection in 2014.
Currently, the bipartisan House group is hashing out temporary visas for imported agricultural labor.
In an interesting development that demonstrates how far the Republican Party has evolved on the immigration issue since losing 71 percent of the Latino vote in last year's presidential election, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia came out in support of the DREAM Act -- or at least its intent -- during his speech at CPAC 2013 today, the Conservative Political Action Conference taking place in Washington, D.C.
"One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents," Cantor said. " It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home."
The DREAM Act offers a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children. It was initially filibustered in the Senate in 2010, but a less comprehensive version is currently being shopped by Marco Rubio.
The House group had hoped to finish their version of the bill before Easter, but it seems probable they will need to wait -- like their Senate counterparts -- until mid-April.