I was on MSNBC this morning talking about the politics around President Obama’s push for immigration reform.

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Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told Politico he “is planning to release legislation next week that would provide legal status for six years to undocumented immigrants in the United States.”

“Issa, an influential Republican who leads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, described the legislation as a ‘come-from-the-shadows’ effort that would allow the government to do a full accounting of those who are in the U.S. illegally. Immigrants in this new status would be able to travel to their native country while on this temporary visa, he said.”

Meanwhile, USA Today reports President Obama will also turn his attention today “to what has become his top legislative priority: Immigration.”

Roll Call: “Advocates of an immigration overhaul may see a silver lining in the recent 16-day government shutdown for their cause in the House, sensing that Republicans will want to win back some of the popular support they lost over the past month.”

“But House GOP insiders remain skeptical that the fractured Republican
caucus will be able to get something done on the issue anytime soon.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) “has said he is committed to advancing immigration legislation in this Congress but there is virtually no interest among GOP lawmakers to vote for the kind of sweeping bill that Democrats are seeking,” USA Today reports.

Said Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID): “It’s not going to happen this year. After the way the president acted over the last two or three weeks where he would refuse to talk to the speaker of the House… they’re not going to get immigration reform. That’s done.”

Added Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS): “That would really melt down the conference.”

President Obama “made his plans for his newly won political capital official — he’s going to hammer House Republicans on immigration,” Politico reports.

“And it’s evident from his public and private statements that Obama’s latest immigration push is, in at least one respect, similar to his fiscal showdown strategy: yet again, the goal is to boost public pressure on House Republican leadership to call a vote on a Senate-passed measure.”

Bill Scher: “The big mystery that immigration advocates need to figure out: What makes Boehner cave? Is there a common thread? Is there a sequence of buttons you can push that forces Boehner to relent?”

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) “has organized a small but growing number of conservatives who are committed to voting against any House immigration bill – no matter what it says – because they fear that the Senate will inevitably find a way to add ‘amnesty’ to the equation,” National Journal reports.

“King won’t say how many members he’s got on board, except that it reached ‘fairly deeply’ into the GOP caucus. Lobbyists say it’s somewhere between 20 and 70 members. Even at the low end of that range, it’s enough to prevent any Republican-led immigration bill from passing.”

“In a blow to the hopes of passing immigration reform anytime soon, the bipartisan House ‘gang of seven’ plan is probably dead, and almost certainly won’t be introduced this fall as promised,” Greg Sargent reports.

Explained Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-LA): “It doesn’t appear that we’re going to move forward with the group of seven. The process is stalled. I don’t believe we’re going to produce a bill anytime soon.”

“After years of enormous power and political influence, no member of the Bush family currently holds political office,” the New York Times reports.

“But as the focus on military action in Syria drags former President George W. Bush’s Iraq war policy back into the spotlight, the Bush family is quietly but forcefully gearing up for another, still-developing debate: The fight on Capitol Hill over a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws — a discussion critical to protecting the Bushes’ legacy on what has, for decades, been a defining issue for them.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) “came face-to-face Friday with how his support for a bipartisan immigration deal has hurt his standing with the GOP’s tea party wing, facing loud hecklers during a speech to a group of influential conservative activists,” the Washington Post reports.

Rubio’s speech “was punctuated repeatedly by calls of ‘No amnesty!’ from attendees scattered throughout the audience of about 1,000 people. Rubio did not acknowledge the shouts, but he ended his speech with an impassioned description of the promise that he said America offers immigrants such as his parents, who came from Cuba.”

“If he allows something to pass out of conference that looks anything like the Senate bill and it is passed with a majority of Democrats, I think that’ll be the final thing he does as Speaker.”

— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), talking to Laura Ingraham, issuing a warning to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

Greg Sargent:
“How many GOP-held House districts vulnerable to changing sides have
large enough Latino populations to ensure that high Latino turnout in
2014 could swing the outcome? As it turns out, not too many. A grand
total of eight, and that’s if you include multiple races that Democrats
are all but certainly not going to win. Given that Dems need to flip 17
seats to take back the House — and will be defending a host of Dem-held
seats against GOP challenges at the same time — this is less than
encouraging.”

The Republican National Committee “passed a resolution Friday calling on Congress to pass an immigration reform bill by the end of the year–but it stopped well short of the bipartisan compromise passed by the Senate earlier this year, omitting a ‘path to citizenship’ for any class of illegal immigrant,” Time reports.

“The resolution calls on Congress to create a special legal status for illegal immigrants brought to America as minors–or ‘DREAMers,’ as immigration activists call them, for the eponymous bill to provide them legal status–which would include a renewable five-year work permit. They would have to provide proof of employment or enrollment to retain the status.”

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told CNN that Republicans are under a “spell” when it comes to immigration reform.

Said King: “Last year, almost everybody in my conference would’ve agreed with me on this immigration issue. And this year, it seems as though after the presidential election a spell’s been cast over a good number of Republicans and they seem to think the presidential election was about immigration. I’d ask them, find me that debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama that addressed immigration. I don’t remember it. I can’t find it. The election was about jobs and the economy, not immigration. And yet some Republican strategists and leadership have decided let’s just go ahead and debate immigration for twelve months and then we’ll see if we can solve the problem.”

Los Angeles Times: “An unprecedented collection of political bedfellows has coalesced this year on the reform side of the immigration debate: liberal Latino organizations and Republican operatives, the Chamber of Commerce and labor unions, faith groups and high-tech companies. And… some left-leaning groups are financing Republican pro-immigration groups.”

“The result is a flood of money for advertising, lobbying and field organizing aimed at convincing Republicans in Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally, authorize more temporary work visas and increase security on the border with Mexico.”

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) told the Washington Post that the House “has more than enough GOP votes — around 40 or 50 — to pass comprehensive immigration reform if it were brought to a vote. But Gutierrez said Republicans who support the idea are staying deliberately quiet to avoid a backlash from conservative activists.”

Said Gutierrez: “Some of them I’ve spoken to, and they say, ‘Love to do the activity with you, I want to be able to vote for it, I really don’t need to draw attention to myself at this point,’ but we can count on it.”

“If I insulted anybody, it could have only been drug smugglers, just the drug smugglers, and I probably didn’t do an adequate job of insulting drug smugglers, but the people who want to disparage what I said and what they’re really doing is defending drug smugglers.”

— Rep. Steve King (R-IA), quoted by KTIV, continuing to stick by his controversial remarks on the children of undocumented workers.

National Journal: “Immigration-reform activists aren’t supposed to talk publicly about a “Plan B.” They can’t, or won’t, answer questions from the media about what they will do if no bill passes this year to legalize the undocumented population. But as August wears on and there is no clear sense of what the House will do on immigration, some are starting to speak out.”

“The idea behind the “other track” is to freeze the current undocumented population in place through an administrative order, give them work permits, and hope for a better deal under the next president, with the hope that he or she is a Democrat. It’s a significant gamble, but some advocates–particularly those outside of the Washington legislative bartering system–argue that it’s better than what they stand to see under the legislation being discussed now.”

“Yes, I think Steve King, the more he speaks, the more he helps us get a bill passed.”

— Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in an interview with the Huffington Post. on the prospects for immigration reform.