WASHINGTON — A working group of senators from both parties is nearing agreement on broad principles for overhauling the nation’s immigration laws, representing the most substantive bipartisan effort toward comprehensive legislation in years.
The six members have met quietly since the November election, most recently on Wednesday. Congressional aides stressed there is not yet final agreement, but they have set Friday as a target date for a possible public announcement.
The talks mark the most in-depth negotiations involving members of both parties since a similar effort broke down in 2010 without producing a bill.
“We have basic agreement on many of the core principles,” Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., a member of the group, said last week. “Now we have to draft it. It takes time.”
“The group we’ve been meeting with - and it’s equal number of Democrats and Republicans - we’re real close,” added Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., another member of the group.
The accelerated pace signals that an immigration overhaul is expected to be one of Congress’ highest priorities, and it comes as the White House prepares to start its own public campaign on the issue.
President Barack Obama will travel Tuesday to Las Vegas to speak about the need to “fix the broken immigration system this year,” the administration announced, an appearance in a state with a rapidly growing number of Hispanic voters, who overwhelmingly supported his re-election. Obama also met Friday with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
“The president has made clear that he intends to act very quickly,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday. “I’m not going to hem him in by putting a timetable on it, but I think you can expect him to be true to his word, which is to take up this issue very early in his second term.”
Past efforts begun amid similarly high hopes have sputtered. But members of both parties increasingly see changes to the nation’s troubled immigration system as an area most likely to draw bipartisan agreement at a time when Congress is deeply divided on gun control, spending and taxes.
The optimism is spurred by the sense that the political dynamics have shifted markedly since the last two significant bipartisan efforts failed. In 2007, a bill crafted in the Senate died after failing to win support of 60 members despite backing from then president George W. Bush. Many Republicans, and some centrist Democrats, opposed that effort because it offered a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.
In 2010, extended negotiations between Schumer and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., broke down without producing legislation.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a veteran of the 2007 effort who is part of the current working group, said Republican attitudes have dramatically shifted since the party’s defeat at the polls in November. Obama won more than 70 percent of the vote among Hispanics and Asians, and a growing number of GOP leaders believe action on immigration is necessary to expand the party’s appeal to members of minority groups.
“Obviously, it’s had a very distinct impression,” said McCain, who lost his own bid for the White House in 2008. “It’s time to move forward on this.”
But he added, “I don’t claim that it’s going to be easy.”
Also included in the new Senate group are Schumer, who is chairman in the key Senate subcommittee where legislative action will begin; Graham; Robert Menendez, D-N.J.; and Marco Rubio, R-Fla.. Two others, Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., also have been involved in some talks.
Their timetable would aim for a bill to be written by March or April and potentially considered for final passage in the Senate as early as the summer. Proponents believe adoption in the GOPheld House would be made easier with a strong bipartisan vote in the Senate.
The working group’s principles would address stricter border control, better employer verification of workers’ immigration status, new visas for temporary agriculture workers and expanding the number of visas available for skilled engineers. They would also include a call to help young people who were brought to the country illegally as children by their parents become citizens and to normalize the status of the nation’s 11 million illegal aliens.
But obstacles abound. For instance, Rubio has said he believes people who came to the country illegally should be able to earn a work permit. But he has said they should be required to seek citizenship through existing avenues, and only after those who have come to the country legally.
Democrats and immigration advocates fear that approach could result in waittimes stretching for decades, creating a class of permanent legal residents for whom the benefits of citizenship appear unattainable. They have pushed to create new pathways to citizenship specifically available to those who achieve legal residency as part an overhaul.
It is not yet clear if the Senate group will endorse a mechanism allowing such people to eventually become citizens - something Obama is expected to champion. Schumer said it would be “relatively detailed,” but would not “get down into the weeds.”
A source close to Rubio said he joined the group in December at the request of other members only after they agreed their effort would lineup with his own principles.
His ideas have since been embraced by conservatives, including some longtime foes of providing legal status to those who have come to the country illegally.
As a possible 2016 presidential contender widely trusted on the right, Rubio’s support could be key to moving the bipartisan effort.
And while Rubio and other Republicans have said they would prefer to split up a comprehensive immigration proposal into smaller bills that would be voted on separately, the White House will pursue comprehensive legislation that seeks to overhaul the process in a single bill.
White House officials said they welcome the bipartisan Senate group’s deliberations and do not think it will conflict with the administration’s strategy.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 01/27/2013