Immigration Reform News 2013: House Steps Up With Bill More Pleasing to Republicans As Senate Hits Snags

As the "Gang of Eight" in the Senate continues to hit snags while creating a bipartisan immigration reform bill, the House of Representatives may be stepping up to present its own legislation.

A groups of reps has been working on a bill for some time now, but they've been mostly content to let the Senate group deal with most of the accolades and derision.

But the Senate bill has already missed its initial deadline, and some congressional Republicans aren't pleased by the developments in the language of the compromise measure.

Notably, Rep. Raul Labrador, a Republican from Idaho, has said he opposes a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.. While that's not the official stance of the House group, it does illustrate the difficulties in crafting a piece of legislation that would be acceptable to the Republican-controlled House.

"I think one of the things that we're dealing with is the issue of making sure that House Republicans who are in the majority are comfortable with whatever package comes to the floor of the House," Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky said.

"You know, just kind of the sensitivity is, would House Republicans be open to a bill that comes from a Democratic-controlled Senate or from a Democratic president? And that's why we kind of think our effort is most important because if we can get one through the House, then I think the odds of getting it signed into law improve a lot," he said.

Yarmuth said the group has been able to resolve the most difficult issues and is getting close to unveiling its own proposals, but he did not give any specifics. It seems unlikely that a bill that would garner the support of Tea Party Republicans would include enough provisions to make it acceptable to Democrats.

But Yarmuth insists the group has already come to agreements on a path to citizenship, a guest worker program, employment verification and border security.

According to MSNBC, the reps working on the House bill are Yarmuth, Labrador, Democrats Zoe Lofgren and Xavier Becerra of California, Republican Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida and Republicans John Carter and Sam Johnson of Texas. Whether they will be able to come up with a bill that will pass muster with both parties remains to be seen.