According to the Wall Street Journal, in the summer of 2013, Boehner and Obama began discussing ways to achieve a move forward with immigration and building trust. The WSJ notes they "bonded over a shared passion for golf."
Such confidence building included an ask by Boehner to Obama not to create additional hostility on the issue by publicly criticizing Republicans on immigration, something Obama agreed to do — according to the report — and did not go through with a series of 2013 trips to battleground states with large Hispanic populations.
Additionally, the WSJ reports, in November, Obama went along with the idea for Congress to adopt a step-by-step process to reform, rather than that type of massive bill passed by the Senate. The men also discussed ways to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants already in the U.S.
According to the report, while the White House thought Boehner was using the trust issue as an excuse for not having enough votes, Obama's compromise to Boehner was to not take executive action until after the summer to allow the House to act.
