White House, senators starting push on immigration

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House and a bipar­ti­san group of sen­a­tors will launch an effort next week to jump-start nego­ti­a­tions to over­haul the immi­gra­tion sys­tem, an issue that has lan­guished in Wash­ing­ton for years.

Obama will begin his second-term immi­gra­tion push dur­ing a trip Tues­day to Las Vegas. The Sen­ate work­ing group is also aim­ing to out­line its pro­pos­als at about the same time, accord­ing to a Sen­ate aide.

Even before those plans are for­mally unveiled, there is emerg­ing con­sen­sus on sev­eral com­po­nents, most notably the need for some kind of path­way to cit­i­zen­ship for the 11 mil­lion ille­gal immi­grants already in the United States.

The pro­pos­als will com­mence what is sure to be a con­tentious and emo­tional debate fol­low­ing 2012 elec­tion results that saw Latino vot­ers turn out in large num­bers to re-elect Obama — a sig­nal to many Repub­li­can lead­ers that the party needs to change its pos­ture on immigration.

The aim of the Sen­ate group is to draft an immi­gra­tion bill by March and pass leg­is­la­tion in the Sen­ate by August, said the aide, who was not autho­rized to dis­cuss pri­vate delib­er­a­tions and requested anonymity. The Republican-controlled House would also need to pass the leg­is­la­tion before it went to the White House for the president’s signature.

For Obama, a suc­cess­ful push on immi­gra­tion reform would be a promise kept to the Latino com­mu­nity after he dis­ap­pointed many by fail­ing to act on the issue in his first term, and it could be cen­tral to his legacy. The pres­i­dent met with the Con­gres­sional His­panic Cau­cus at the White House Fri­day to dis­cuss his upcom­ing proposals.

Fol­low­ing the meet­ing, law­mak­ers empha­sized the need to act quickly.

“The time to act on com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform is now,” said Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif. “I remain hope­ful that my col­leagues in Con­gress can do the right thing and work together to pro­duce leg­is­la­tion that secures our bor­ders, reunites bro­ken fam­i­lies and humanely treats the more than 11 mil­lion indi­vid­u­als who want noth­ing more than (to) achieve the Amer­i­can dream.”

Obama pledged to make over­haul­ing the sys­tem a top second-term priority.

“I think we have talked about it long enough,” Obama said dur­ing an inter­view with NBC’s “Meet the Press” in Decem­ber. “We know how we can fix it. We can do it in a com­pre­hen­sive way that the Amer­i­can peo­ple sup­port. That’s some­thing we should get done.”

Admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials say Obama’s second-term immi­gra­tion push will con­tinue the prin­ci­ples he out­lined dur­ing his first four years in office. The basis for the president’s plan is expected to be his 2011 immi­gra­tion reform “blue­print,” which calls for a path­way to cit­i­zen­ship for ille­gal immi­grants, increased bor­der secu­rity, manda­tory penal­ties for busi­nesses that employ unau­tho­rized immi­grants and improve­ments to the legal immi­gra­tion system.

“What he hopes is that that dynamic has changed,” White House spokesman Jay Car­ney said of Obama. “And there are cer­tainly indi­ca­tions now that what was once a bipar­ti­san effort to push for­ward with com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform will again be a bipar­ti­san effort to do so.”

For Repub­li­cans, tack­ling immi­gra­tion reform could be a way to broaden their appeal among Latino vot­ers who are increas­ingly key to pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. Latino vot­ers accounted for 10 per­cent of the elec­torate in Novem­ber, and 71 per­cent backed Obama over the 27 per­cent who voted for Romney.

In the Sen­ate, law­mak­ers work­ing on the effort include Democ­rats Charles Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illi­nois and Robert Menen­dez of New Jer­sey; and Repub­li­cans John McCain of Ari­zona, Lind­sey Gra­ham of South Car­olina and Marco Rubio of Florida, accord­ing to Sen­ate aides.

A few other law­mak­ers have also been involved, includ­ing Demo­c­rat Michael Ben­net of Col­orado and Repub­li­cans Jeff Flake of Ari­zona and Mike Lee of Utah. It’s not clear whether all those involved will sign on to the prin­ci­ples the group hopes to roll out next week.

Details of the Sen­ate pro­pos­als remain unclear, but the prin­ci­ples are expected to address a process toward legal­iz­ing the sta­tus of unau­tho­rized immi­grants already in the coun­try; bor­der secu­rity; ver­i­fi­ca­tion mea­sures for employ­ers hir­ing work­ers and ways for more tem­po­rary work­ers to be admit­ted into the country.

On the path to cit­i­zen­ship, Schumer and Gra­ham have in the past sup­ported requir­ing ille­gal immi­grants to admit they broke the law, per­form com­mu­nity ser­vice, pay fines and back taxes, pass back­ground checks and learn Eng­lish before going to the back of the line of immi­grants already in the system.

Sev­eral of the sen­a­tors nego­ti­at­ing the immi­gra­tion prin­ci­ples are vet­er­ans of the com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform effort under then-President George W. Bush. That process col­lapsed in 2007 when it came up well-short of the needed votes in the Sen­ate, a bit­ter out­come for Bush and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Democ­rats’ leader on the legislation.

Some Repub­li­cans still lament that result as a missed oppor­tu­nity for the party that could have set the GOP on a dif­fer­ent path to reach more Latino voters.

Rubio is a rel­a­tive new­comer to Sen­ate nego­ti­a­tions on the issue, but he’s seen as a ris­ing star in his party and a poten­tial 2016 pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. As a charis­matic young His­panic leader, his pro­pos­als on immi­gra­tion have attracted wide notice in recent weeks. And as a con­ser­v­a­tive favorite, unlike McCain or Gra­ham, his stamp of approval could be crit­i­cal to draw­ing in other con­ser­v­a­tive lawmakers.

A Repub­li­can aide said that Rubio has made clear in his inter­ac­tions with the group that he couldn’t sign on to pro­pos­als that devi­ated from the prin­ci­ples he him­self has been lay­ing out in recent media inter­views, includ­ing bor­der secu­rity first, a guest-worker pro­gram, more visas for high-tech work­ers and enforce­ment in the work­place. As for the ille­gal immi­grants already in the coun­try, Rubio would have them pay a fine and back taxes, show they have not com­mit­ted crimes, prove they’ve been in the coun­try for some time and speak some Eng­lish and apply for per­ma­nent res­i­dency. Ulti­mately, cit­i­zen­ship, too, could be in reach, but only after a process that doesn’t nudge aside immi­grants already in line, and Rubio hasn’t pro­vided details on how long it all might take.

The aide was not autho­rized to dis­cuss pri­vate delib­er­a­tions and requested anonymity in order to describe them.

An open ques­tion for the Sen­ate group has been whether Obama would release an actual bill or just his own prin­ci­ples. Repub­li­cans in the group tend to believe that a bill handed down by the White House could seri­ously com­pli­cate the process, spook­ing the GOP by com­ing off as a purely polit­i­cal move, since a White House-written bill would have lit­tle chance of actu­ally passing.

The White House and Sen­ate Democ­rats favor address­ing immi­gra­tion through one broad pack­age of leg­is­la­tion, while some Repub­li­cans law­mak­ers pre­fer to tackle the issue through sev­eral sep­a­rate bills.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Jan 25 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.