Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images

Migrant farm workers from Mexico a day of harvesting organic vegetables in Wellington, Colorado.

A group of U.S. House members will propose steps to legal status for undocumented immigrants, who shouldn’t be living here permanently without a chance to become “real Americans,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.

Bringing many of the approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants “out of the shadows” and improving the immigration system would be “great” for businesses and the economy, Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Peter Cook for “Capitol Gains” airing April 7. The Florida Republican is a member of a bipartisan House group negotiating a plan.

“Imagine if you legalize folks who are already here,” said Diaz-Balart. “You bring them out of the shadows,” he said, “so that they can become an integral part of the economy.” He added: “For business, this is a win-win.”

Diaz-Balart said the House group won’t allow any “amnesty” for those who are unlawfully in the U.S. “There will be no amnesty in this bill,” he said. “The House is not going to support amnesty for people who are here  undocumented. ”

“It’s not good public policy to have a group of people who are in the United States permanently” that could “never aspire to become real Americans,” he said. “The flip-side of that, however, is you want to make sure that folks who broke the law do not have rights” that others who have done things legally don’t have.

The secretive bipartisan House group has been working on an overhaul of immigration laws for about four years and has “95 percent” of the bill drafted, said Diaz-Balart. A group of senators plans to introduce their own bill next week.

The Republican-led House is taking a slower approach on rewriting the immigration laws than the Democratic-led Senate. The House probably won’t take up a measure until June.

“We’re not in a rush,” Diaz-Balart said. “We don’t have deadlines that we have imposed on ourselves, other than the fact that we want to fix what’s broken.”

“I think we’re very close,” he said. “We’ve had the advantage of having time. We’ve been working on this now for a number of years,”  he said. “Most of the really thorny issues we’ve been able to hammer out and reach agreement on.”

He said: “‘We’re more concerned about getting it right  than doing it quickly.”

The Senate immigration overhaul effort is centered on creating a 13-year path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the U.S. House Republicans may be more open to allowing legal residency rather than citizenship.

Republican opposition to providing a citizenship path, a major stumbling block in past efforts, has lessened since the November election, when President Barack Obama won 71 percent of Hispanic votes cast. Republican leaders have said the party needs to do more to court the fast-growing voter bloc.

Republicans need to resolve the immigration issue because it’s been a “good, successful tool” for Democrats and “political suicide for the Republicans,” Diaz-Balart said.

“Until we can get immigration off the table, we can’t even approach that community,” he said, referring to Hispanic voters. “It’s essential. Until that time, we’re in deep trouble.”

Diaz-Balart said a March 29 agreement between business and  labor leaders on allocating visas to low-skilled foreign workers may not be part of a final plan.

“I don’t think those deals are necessarily going to be the final” part of any legislation, he said, adding that such accords are “guidelines.”

Original post is House Ready to Make Undocumented ‘Real Americans:’ Diaz-Balart by Political Capital.

Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images

Dominican immigrants pose for photos after becoming American citizens at a special Valentine’s Day naturalization ceremony for married couples on Feb. 14, 2013 in Tampa, Florida.

There’s a lot of optimism and happy talk from President Barack Obama and lawmakers on Capitol Hill these days about the prospects of pushing through a bipartisan immigration rewrite this year. Yet among those tasked with hashing out such a compromise, there’s also a hefty dose of realism about the difficulty of that job.

Staffers grinding away on the plan made a private plea today to Latino elected officials not to abandon the legislation once it’s unveiled, warning them that it would be a compromise that wouldn’t fully please either side. It’s an acknowledgement that, even as momentum gathers behind an immigration revamp, the challenges that have undermined past efforts remain.

It would take “Armageddon” to derail the effort this time, Enrique Gonzalez III, immigration counsel to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida told a group of Latino elected officials at a private briefing today, according to two people present.

Still Gonzalez, who Rubio recently brought on board to spearhead his immigration efforts, also warned that the measure won’t be perfect and exhorted those present to get behind it anyway, according to attendees, or risk seeing it collapse as a similar effort did in 2007.

The comments came at a luncheon sponsored by the National Association of Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund and the people described them on condition of anonymity since it was declared “off the record.”

The session also featured an aide to another of the Senate’s bipartisan gang of eight on immigration, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, as well as to two staffers to House members working on a parallel effort, Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra of California and Republican Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida. All were bullish about their chances of reaching an agreement, and the Republicans described a sea change among lawmakers in their party they said gave them hope.

Indeed, Republicans have moved off their opposition to allowing a path to legal status for the 11 million undocumented immigrants estimated to be living in the U.S., after their party’s 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney drew only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote compared witho Obama’s 71 percent. Yet some prominent lawmakers, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, are still against allowing them to eventually gain citizenship — a central demand of Obama, congressional Democrats and advocacy groups.

Insiders are already warning that longtime proponents of an immigration overhaul may not get everything they want. Attendees said Menendez’s chief counsel, Kerri Sherlock Talbot, asked Latinos at today’s briefing to remain united behind the legislation even though it would be a “centrist bill” and a compromise, knowing it would be “the best we can do.”

Original post is Immigration Authors: Optimism, Caution by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Goldman/AP Photo

Volunteer Ginny Barahona of Washington hands out buttons before first lady Michelle Obama spoke at a Hispanic caucus on Sept. 5, 2012, in Charlotte.

So Univision planted the question, and the answer:

“Will we have immigration reform by the end of this year?” interviewer Maria Elena Salinas asked President Barack Obama in one of the two Spanish-language TV interviews he gave about immigration today. He also sat with Telemundo’s Jose Diaz-Balart, brother of Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart. Get the drift here?

“I believe so,” Obama said.

“You can tell our audience, sí se puede?” the interviewer asked, with the Spanish translation for Obama’s election campaign “Yes we can.”

“Sí se puede,” said the president, who won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote in his 2012 re-election and didn’t pick Univision and Telemundo at random, the day after his trip to Las Vegas, to talk about immigration reform (la reforma migratoria)”

“But I want to remind the audience, because Maria Elena we’ve had this conversation for many, many years,” Obama said in the interview. “The only way this is going to get done is if the Republicans continue to work with Democrats in Congress in both chambers in order to get a bill to my desk.  And I’m going to keep on pushing as hard as I can. I believe that the mood is right.”

Barack Obama dijo: “Sí se puede” respecto a la reforma migratoria en a entrevista de Maria Elena Salinasuni.vi/1RG5Sw

— Maria Elena Salinas(@MariaElenaSFans) January 31, 2013

The president credited the eight senators, Democrats and Republicans (Florida’s Republican Marco Rubio among them), who proposed an outline for immigration legislation this week, including a “road-map” to citizenship for most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. They plan twice-weekly meetings aimed at producing legislation by March.

“Most people believe that the biggest hurdle will be the path to citizenship,” the interviewer asked. “You have clearly said that it mustn’t be included from the outset. Senator Marco Rubio says that he will not support a bill that does not put border security ahead of citizenship. Is this going to end up being a battle between you and Marco Rubio?”

“So all those things are going to have to be put in place,” Obama said, averting the question about one of the Republican Party’s potential prospects for 2016. “But we have to put that in the place at the outset and make sure that people are clear that this pathway is real and not just a fantasy for the future.”

“What I’m going to do is allow the Senate to work on these details,” he said. “I don’t want to, you know, fill in all the blanks. Because otherwise I would have gone ahead and put a bill forward. And then sometimes that creates a dynamic in Congress where if Iim for it, then maybe some people have to be against it. I think these are all legitimate questions. I think that over the next several weeks, these next several months what we?ll see is many of these issues will be debated. But the basic principle would be, from my perspective, that somebody who has lived here has been overall a good neighbor, has been somebody who?s been law abiding other than the fact that they came here illegally. That have put roots down here. That they should have the capacity to earn citizenship. ”

Obama was asked in this interview about his legacy.

“Well, I spoke about my vision at the inauguration,” he said. “You know, America has everything that it needs to be not just a great country, but a country that is leading the world on so many important issues. But we just have to come together and recognize what is it that is most important to us. What makes us special. And what makes us special more than anything is the fact that we believe in hard work. We believe that if you work hard you should be able to succeed, that you should be able to pay your bills and support a family. So I want to leave behind a legacy where the economy once again works for the middle class and people who are striving to get in the middle class. That kids who want a good education can get a good education. That everybody whose willing to work hard can make it. And the other thing is that it includes everybody. Right?”

“That we’re not saying, there’s some Americans who make it, but some who don’t. There’s some who look like this, or some who, you know, had that sexual orientation or some people who had that perspective and somehow they’re not as important. You know, what has always been a hallmark of America even when we didn’t always live up to the ideal, was this ideal that, you know, we hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal.”

Original post is Obama on Immigration: ‘Sí Se Puede’ by Political Capital.