After much anticipation, details from President Obama's plan to reform immigration were reported this week-plans that include providing a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.
USA Today reported Sunday that they had obtained a copy of President Obama's immigration reform plan, which would provide undocumented immigrants-roughly 11 million of them living in the U.S.-the ability to apply for citizenship via the "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" visa.
According to the provisions in the Obama draft proposal, if accepted, undocumented immigrants could apply for the visa if they pass a criminal background check, provide biometric information and pay fines and other fees. If approved for the visa, those immigrants can live and work in the United States for four years before reapplying.
Those immigrants could also apply for the same provisional legal status for their spouse or children living outside the country. However, President Obama's proposal would also implement more security funding and require business owners to check the immigration status of new hires within four years.
While President Obama announced his plans for a bill on immigration changes in January, details on his proposal have been scant until now. However, news of the outline of his plan come at a time when a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators, known as the "Gang of Eight" have put forward their own immigration proposal, unveiled last month.
However, White House officials insisted that the plan was not intended to derail the efforts of those senators.
"We continue to work in support of a bipartisan effort, and while the president has made clear he will move forward if Congress fails to act, progress continues to be made and the administration has not prepared a final bill to submit," White House spokesman Clark Stevens told USA Today.
However, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of the members of the bipartisan panel which came out with their own legislation, issued a scathing rejection of the bill, stating that it was a "mistake" for the President to draft legislation on immigration reform.
"The President's bill repeats the failures of past legislation," Rubio said. "It fails to follow through on previously broken promises to secure our borders, creates a special pathway that puts those who broke our immigration laws at an advantage over those who chose to do things the right way and come here legally, and does nothing to address guest workers or future flow, which serious immigration experts agree is critical to preventing future influxes of illegal immigrants."
U.S. Sen. Paul Rand, R-Ky., told Fox News on Sunday that the president's plan was not feasible.
"The president is torpedoing his own plan," Paul said. "It shows me he is really not serious. ... The bill won't pass."
U.S. Sen. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., a former vice-presidential candidate, also criticized Obama's plan.
"Putting these details out without a guest worker program, without addressing future flow, by giving advantage to those who cut in front of line for immigrants who came here legally, not dealing with border security adequately, that tells us that he's looking for a partisan advantage and not a bipartisan solution," Ryan told ABC's "This Week."
In response to Rubio's scathing comments, President Obama's chief of staff Denis McDonough told ABC's "This Week," that the bill was a reminder of the President's commitment towards fixing the immigration proposal, and the ball was now in Congress' court to make sure the president's proposal would not be sent to Capitol Hill.
President Obama said in a speech in Nevada weeks ago that if Congress did not have a proposal to address the immigration issue in the next few months, he would send his own proposal to Congress and insist that they vote on it right away.
"He [Marco Rubio] says its 'dead on arrival' if it's proposed. Well let's make sure that it doesn't have to be proposed," McDonough said in an interview with ABC's Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl. "Let's make sure that that group up there, the 'Gang of Eight,' makes the good progress on these efforts as much as they say they want to."
Republicans, who have been the group most opposed to immigration reforms in the past, have been forced to realign their position on the issue after Latinos overwhelmingly rejected GOP candidate Mitt Romney in the polls in November in favor of President Obama in record numbers.
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