President Barack Obama plans to push for a comprehensive immigration plan that includes a legislative solution to issues such as undocumented immigrants, according to administration officials.
While no final decision has been made about when the Democratic White House’s proposal will be formally introduced, administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said they will oppose efforts by Republicans to break immigration legislation into smaller bills.
In his first news conference after winning re-election, Obama promised to begin working on a major immigration bill soon after the formal start of his second term.
“I am very confident that we can get immigration reform done,” the president told reporters on Nov. 14. “My expectation is that we get a bill introduced and we begin the process in Congress very soon after my inauguration.”
Even as much of Washington has focused on fiscal issues and curbing gun control, the administration has been working on a plan for several months. Their proposal will include a path to citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, according to officials -- an idea opposed as amnesty by Republican critics.
Separately from the White House, a bipartisan group of senators, headed by Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have been working on a parallel bill.
Latino Vote
Obama won 71 percent of Latino voters in the 2012 election, a victory that left Republicans willing to take up the immigration issue as a way to change their image with the fast- growing demographic group. National exit polls showed that 10 percent of the electorate was Latino, compared with 9 percent four years ago and 8 percent in 2004.
“A comprehensive approach is long overdue, and I’m confident that the president, myself, others, can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all,” House Speaker John Boehner said in a Nov. 8 interview with ABC News.
The U.S. spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement last year, more than all other major federal criminal law enforcement agencies combined, according to a Jan. 7 report by the nonpartisan Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.
Economic Importance
Immigrant-owned businesses employ one in 10 U.S. workers in private companies and contribute more than $775 billion of revenue to the nation’s economy, according to the Partnership for a New American Economy. The businesses generate about $125 billion in payroll, the nonpartisan advocacy group of 450 mayors and business leaders said in a report last August.
The report, written by Robert Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, analyzed U.S. Census data, including national population and business- owner surveys, to conclude that immigrants, who account for 12.9 percent of the population, started 28 percent of all new U.S. businesses in 2011. In 1996, immigrants founded 15 percent of all new businesses, the report said.
Immigrants are more than twice as likely to start a business as the native-born, according to the report. In 2011, the immigrant business-formation rate was 550 new businesses per month for every 100,000 immigrants, while the native-born rate was 270 for every 100,000, according to the report.
The group’s founders are News Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
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