Obama to announce his immigration reform plan, said to be more liberal than Senate effort

The Obama administration has developed its own proposals for immigration reform that are more liberal than a separate bipartisan effort in the Senate, including a quicker path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, people with knowledge of the proposals said.

President Obama is expected to provide some details of the White House plans during a Tuesday appearance in Las Vegas, where he will call for broad changes to the nation’s immigration laws. The speech will kick off a public push by the administration in support of the broadest overhaul of immigration law in nearly three decades.

Video

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a longtime advocate of immigration reform and an architect of the new bipartisan immigration deal, discusses the finer points of what the Senate proposal may entail.

More from PostPolitics

It's not just Republicans up in arms about Benghazi

Sean Sullivan

THE FIX | More than half of Americans say the Obama administration is trying to cover up the facts of the attack, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

IRS’s Lois Lerner to plead the Fifth

Aaron Blake

The IRS official who first disclosed the agency's improper targeting of conservative groups will invoke her right not to incriminate herself.

Has anyone been ‘fired’ because of the Benghazi attacks?

Glenn Kessler

FACT CHECKER | Sen. Rand Paul claims no one has been fired because of the Benghazi attacks. So what happened to those State Department officials who lost their jobs?

Coburn: Tornado aid must be offset

Rachel Weiner

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) will insist that any federal aid to deal with the tornado in his home state must be offset by budget cuts.

Read more

Obama plans to praise the proposals laid out Monday by an eight-member Senate working group, saying they reflect the core tenets of the administration’s immigration blueprint developed in 2011, a senior administration official said.

But the president’s remarks also are likely to emphasize differences that could foreshadow roadblocks to passage in Congress at a time when both parties say there is momentum for a comprehensive deal.

For example, the Senate proposal would let illegal immigrants obtain legal residency quickly. But it would not allow them to seek full citizenship until border security had been improved and a new system was in place for employers to verify the employment status of workers.

Obama will not endorse such a proposal, the administration official said. The president intends to make clear the need for a more straightforward route for un­documented workers and students to obtain citizenship, reflecting fears among advocates that a cumbersome process would create a decades-long wait for some migrants.

“We see the Senate principles as a centrist set of principles, but we expect the administration to be more detailed to the left,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a leading immigration advocacy group. “I don’t think it’ll be an immigration advocate’s dream, but it will be a solid left-of-center proposal.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney sought to close the gap between the White House and the Senate group during his daily briefing with reporters Monday, calling the Capitol Hill announcement “a big deal” because it includes a path to citizenship supported by four senators from each party. Similar provisions — opposed by many Republicans who think they would reward lawbreakers over those who come to the country legally — helped doom previous attempts to overhaul immigration in 2007 and 2010.

“This is in keeping with the principles the president has been espousing for a long time, in keeping with bipartisan efforts in the past and with the effort this president believes has to end in a law that he can sign,” Carney said.

He declined to say whether the White House objects to the proposal from the Senate group that would tie citizenship to border security and employment-verification measures. But he noted the administration’s focus on border-security issues, which included deporting nearly 410,000 immigrants in 2012, an all-time high.

The borders “have never been better enforced than they are now,” Carney said.