House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, plans to make immigration reform a top priority, the top Republican told business executives in Dublin, Ireland, over the weekend.

The U.S. News & World Report noted his remarks were surprising given congressional Republicans' resistance to the issue, as well as his own refusal to put the matter up for a vote in the House of Representatives.

While speaking at an Independence Day luncheon at the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland, Boehner recounted how Taoiseach Enda Kenny -- the Irish equivalent of a prime minister -- urged him to tackle the overhaul of the U.S. immigration system, the Irish Times detailed. Kenny told Boehner that "the lack of reform has left some Irish immigrants listening to a parent's funeral by phone."

"Oh John, John, you don't realize there are about (50,000) of my fellow Irishmen came to the U.S. and never quite made it back across the pond," the premier is said to have told Boehner.

The speaker, meanwhile, seemed to subtly criticize fellow Republican lawmakers who thought the matter would be resolved by sticking their heads in the sand, the newspaper illustrated. "It doesn't work that way," he said.

Still, many in Boehner's party may remain weary when it comes to a new public debate on immigration reform. CNN analyzed, "No issue has bedeviled Republicans in recent election cycles more than illegal immigration. GOP candidates have been snared, over and over again, by the difficulty of appealing to conservative GOP primary voters who dominate the primary process while not alienating Latino voters, whose influence has grown in battleground states with each presidential cycle."

The recent debate over Donald Trump's controversial comments, in which the presidential candidate had branded undocumented immigrants from Mexico as criminals and rapists, illustrates how tricky of an issue immigration is for Republicans. While some of his internal contenders in the 2016 White House race sharply criticized Trump's remarks, others, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, "have seemed unwilling to engage beyond paper statements," CNN judged.