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| President Barack Obama speaks about immigration reform Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas. |
LAS VEGAS
(AP) -- Declaring "now is the time" to fix the nation's broken
immigration system, President Barack Obama on Tuesday outlined broad
proposals for putting millions of illegal immigrants on a clear path to
citizenship while cracking down on businesses that employ people
illegally and tightening security at the borders. He hailed a bipartisan
Senate group on a similar track but left unresolved key details that
could derail the complex and emotional effort.
Potential
Senate roadblocks center on how to structure the avenue to citizenship
and on whether legislation would cover same-sex couples - and that's all
before a Senate measure could be debated, approved and sent to the
Republican-controlled House where opposition is sure to be stronger.
Obama,
who carried Nevada in the November election with heavy Hispanic
support, praised the Senate push, saying Congress is showing "a genuine
desire to get this done soon." But mindful of previous immigrations
efforts that have failed, he warned that the debate would be difficult
and vowed to send his own legislation to Capitol Hill if lawmakers don't
act quickly.
"The question now is simple,"
Obama said during a campaign-style event in Las Vegas, one week after
being sworn in for a second term in the White House. "Do we have the
resolve as a people, as a country, as a government to finally put this
issue behind us? I believe that we do."
Shortly
after Obama finished speaking, cracks emerged between the White House
and the group of eight senators, which put out their proposals one day
ahead of the president. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a potential 2016
presidential candidate, faulted Obama for not making a citizenship
pathway contingent on tighter border security, a central tenet of the
lawmakers' proposals.
"The president's speech
left the impression that he believes reforming immigration quickly is
more important than reforming immigration right," Rubio said in a
statement.
House Speaker John Boehner also
responded coolly, with spokesman Brendan Buck saying the Ohio Republican
hoped the president would be "careful not to drag the debate to the
left and ultimately disrupt the difficult work that is ahead in the
House and Senate."
Despite possible obstacles
to come, the broad agreement between the White House and bipartisan
lawmakers in the Senate represents a drastic shift in Washington's
willingness to tackle immigration, an issue that has languished for
years. Much of that shift is politically motivated, due to the growing
influence of
Hispanics in presidential and other elections and their
overwhelming support for Obama in November.
The
separate White House and Senate proposals focus on the same principles:
providing a way for most of the estimated 11 million people already in
the U.S. illegally to become citizens, strengthening border security,
cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants and streamlining
the legal immigration system.
A consensus
around the question of citizenship could help lawmakers clear one major
hurdle that has blocked previous immigration efforts. Many Republicans
have opposed allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens, saying that
would be an unfair reward for people who have broken the law.
Details
on how to achieve a pathway to citizenship still could prove to be a
major sticking point between the White House and the Senate group.
Obama
and the Senate lawmakers all want to require people here illegally to
register with the government, pass criminal and national security
background checks, pay fees and penalties as well as back taxes and wait
until existing immigration backlogs are cleared before getting in line
for green cards. Neither proposal backs up those requirements with
specifics.
After achieving legal status, U.S. law says people can become citizens after five years.
The
Senate proposal says that entire process couldn't start until the
borders were fully secure and tracking of people in the U.S. on visas
had improved. Those vague requirements would almost certainly make the
timeline for achieving citizenship longer than what the White House is
proposing.
The president urged lawmakers to
avoid making the citizenship pathway so difficult that it would appear
out of reach for many illegal immigrants.
"We
all agree that these men and women have to earn their way to
citizenship," he said. "But for comprehensive immigration reform to
work, it must make clear from the outset that there is a pathway to
citizenship."
"It won't be a quick process, but it will be a fair process," Obama added.
Another
key difference between the White House and Senate proposals is the
administration's plan to allow same-sex partners to seek visas under the
same rules that govern other family immigration. The Senate principles
do not recognize same-sex partners, though Democratic lawmakers have
told gay rights groups that they could seek to include that in a final
bill.
John McCain of Arizona, who is part of
the Senate immigration group, called the issue a "red flag" in an
interview Tuesday on "CBS This Morning."
Washington
last took up immigration changes in a serious way in 2007, when
then-President George W. Bush pressed for an overhaul. The initial
efforts had bipartisan support but eventually collapsed in the Senate
because of a lack of GOP support.
Cognizant of
that failed effort, the White House has readied its own immigration
legislation. But officials said Obama will send it to the Hill only if
the Senate process stalls.
Most of the
recommendations Obama made Tuesday were not new. They were included in
the immigration blueprint he released in 2011, but he exerted little
political capital to get it passed by Congress, to the disappointment of
many Hispanics.
Some of the recommendations
in the Senate plan are also pulled from past immigration efforts. The
senators involved in formulating the latest proposals, in addition to
McCain and Rubio, are Democrats Charles Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin
of Illinois, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of
Colorado, and Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Jeff
Flake of Arizona.
Also Tuesday, in another
sign of Congress' increased attention to immigration issues, a group of
four senators introduced legislation aimed at allowing more high-tech
workers into the country, a longtime priority of technology businesses.
The bill by Republicans Rubio and Orrin Hatch and Democrats Amy
Klobuchar and Chris Coons would increase the number of visas available
for high-tech workers, make it easier for them to change jobs once here
and for their spouses to work and aim to make it easier for foreigners
at U.S. universities to remain here upon graduation.
