Obama Presses Immigration Bill as Senate Opens Debate
By MARK LANDLER and ASHLEY PARKER
In a tightly choreographed pitch on Tuesday, President Obama sought to
allay fears over immigration changes by noting that the bill included
the tightest border control measures in American history.
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
President Obama spoke at the White House on Tuesday in favor of the immigration measure. He was joined by backers of the bill.
By MARK LANDLER and ASHLEY PARKER
Published: June 11, 2013
WASHINGTON — As the Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to begin
debating a new immigration measure, President Obama offered a
wholehearted endorsement of the bipartisan proposal, which presents him
with a chance to reach the kind of landmark accord with Republicans that
has eluded him on the budget and gun violence.
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Senator Mitch McConnell said the bill needed changes.
For Mr. Obama, who has picked his shots in the immigration debate to
avoid stirring partisan anger on Capitol Hill, it was a moment of
promise and peril. While he threw his weight behind the bill, he
conceded that it would not satisfy all sides and said he anticipated a
bruising fight over issues like border security and the path to
citizenship.
The president, however, may have more leverage than in previous battles,
not least because many Republicans believe rewriting the immigration
laws is critical for the long-term viability of their party given the
nation’s demographic shifts, even if doing so risks alienating parts of
their base.
Republican willingness to weigh significant changes in immigration
policy was evident in the 84-to-15 vote to begin what is expected to be a
monthlong debate on the bill, a lopsided majority that comprised 52
Democrats, 2 independents and 30 Republicans. The opponents were all
Republicans.
Advocates hailed the vote as an encouraging sign for the measure’s
eventual passage. But Senate veterans warned that the procedural victory
did not preclude Republicans from ultimately rejecting the legislation,
which would provide a path to citizenship for 11 million people who are
in the country illegally.
“This bill isn’t perfect; it’s a compromise,” the president said at a
carefully choreographed White House appearance with advocates of reform.
“Going forward, nobody is going to get everything they want. Not
Democrats, not Republicans, not me.”
Though the Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky,
often an impediment to Democratic initiatives, voted to allow debate, he
said he would vote against the bill unless major changes were made.
“These include, but are not limited to, the areas of border security,
government benefits, and taxes,” he said.
The House speaker, John A. Boehner, said he feared that the Senate bill
“doesn’t go far enough.” Speaking on ABC News before the vote, Mr.
Boehner said he had “real concerns with the Senate bill,” especially on
border security and internal enforcement.
A vote to allow a debate is no guarantee of a bill’s passage: the Senate
cleared that threshold on legislation to tighten the nation’s gun laws,
but its key provision, to tighten background checks on gun buyers,
still went down to defeat. At the same time, this procedural vote was
larger than one in 2007, when the Senate last debated immigration
reform, and Mr. Obama was clearly determined to seize the moment.
“If you’re serious about actually fixing the system, then this is the
vehicle to do it,” Mr. Obama declared. “If you’re not serious about it,
if you think that a broken system is the best America can do, then I
guess it makes sense to try to block it.”
Speaking in the East Room, Mr. Obama surrounded himself with supporters
of the bill, including the former police chief in Los Angeles and New
York, William J. Bratton; Thomas J. Donahue, the president of the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce; Julián Castro, the mayor of San Antonio; Steve
Case, an entrepreneur and a founder of AOL; and Richard L. Trumka, the
president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.
While Mr. Obama speaks about the need to overhaul the immigration system
at schools and factories across the country, the East Room event was
his most concerted push for it since he spoke in Las Vegas in January,
around the time a group of Republican and Democratic senators presented a
draft framework for legislation.
That speech, analysts said, drew a positive response from some
influential Republican lawmakers and the White House appeared to be
trying to replicate the experience. But they warned not to overestimate
Mr. Obama’s role in the debate now.
“It propels it forward, but this has already got a lot of juice,” said
Angela Maria Kelley, an expert on immigration at the Center for American
Progress. “In the Senate, there’s a lot of clarity about people’s
positions.”
Other experts said Mr. Obama had learned from hard experience during the
health care and budget debates about the right time to lay low and the
right time to insert himself in the process.
“There’s no question that the president has a delicate dance,” said Ben
Johnson, the executive director of the American Immigration Council.
“He’s got to strike the right tone and the right balance of using the
office effectively and not trampling on the process that’s currently
under way.”
A senior White House official said Mr. Obama’s involvement was important
because the bill’s success would hinge on winning the support of
Hispanic voters, and “there is no Republican with the credibility to
sell this to that community, only the president can.”
On Tuesday, though, senators seemed more immersed in their own debate than in reacting to Mr. Obama.
“Well he doesn’t vote in the Senate anymore, so right now we’re just
focused on getting it passed in the Senate in a responsible way,” said
Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who was one of the
architects of the bill and is one of his party’s most prominent
Hispanics.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said the Democrats
“promised immigration reform in 2009, they didn’t deliver, so they need
to step up to the plate there.”
Another member of the so-called Gang of Eight behind the bill, Senator
Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said Mr. Obama’s remarks echoed
the principles in the legislation, but added of Republicans, “Some of
them have Obamaphobia, so no matter what he does, they won’t be happy.”
Mr. Boehner said he expected that the “House bill will be to the right
of where the Senate is,” but he would not say whether he expected any
legislation that came out of the House to include a path to citizenship
for undocumented immigrants.
Mr. Obama, in an attempt to allay fears about immigration changes, noted
that the bill before the Senate included the tightest border control
provisions in American history. He said twice that illegal crossings
were “near their lowest levels in decades.”
But the president also insisted on a path to citizenship for immigrants
here illegally — a provision that has continued to be a sticking point
between the senators who drafted the legislation and conservative
Republicans, especially in the House, who believe that approach
represents amnesty for those who broke the law to enter or stay in the
country.
The process, he said, would be long and arduous, requiring people to pay
taxes as well as a penalty, learn English, and then go to the back of
the line behind applicants for American citizenship who entered the
country lawfully. The average wait would be 13 years, he said.
“This is no cakewalk,” he said, “but it’s the only way we can make sure
that everyone who’s here is playing by the same rules.” COPY http://www.nytimes.com
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