Rubio, Ryan back off comprehensive immigration overhaul

[...] in a campaign season where Donald Trump's incendiary rhetoric has seemed to drive the debate, they renew questions about whether Washington will ever be able to come up with a solution for the nation's dysfunctional immigration system.

Rubio, in campaigning for president, has repeatedly sworn off the bipartisan Senate immigration bill he co-authored two years ago, and he is now rising in the polls.

Passing comprehensive reform during his presidency would merely render it meaningless, the Wisconsin Republican wrote in an opinion piece Wednesday in USA Today, adding that the focus should instead be on bills to secure the border or enforce immigration rules inside the U.S.

At an event Wednesday in Manchester, N.H., Rubio adopted another conservative stance, pledging that as president he would end an Obama program offering work permits and temporary deportation relief to immigrants brought illegally to this country as kids.

The maneuvering comes from lawmakers who were hailed in the past by immigration activists for their leadership roles, Rubio for taking on the Senate bill and trying to sell it to the conservative community, and Ryan for working behind the scenes in the House and trying to find a legislative solution there.

A crisis of unaccompanied minors arriving from Central America also helped end any faint hopes for action in the House — well before Obama took the executive actions that Ryan and other Republicans now blame for congressional inaction.