Analysis: Delay on immigration overhaul carries big Republican risk

By John Whitesides and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives appear increasingly unlikely to pass an immigration overhaul this year, preferring to focus their election-year strategy on a unified assault on President Barack Obama's healthcare law. House Speaker John Boehner hinted at that strategy on Thursday, when he expressed doubt to reporters that a sweeping revision of U.S. immigration laws would get through Congress this year because Republicans did not trust Democratic President Barack Obama's administration to enforce any immigration laws Congress might write. But many House Republicans have made clear that they want to put off an almost certainly divisive debate over immigration until next year, when they hope to have more legislative clout and a majority in the Senate.