Obama calls support for immigration reform good for GOP, lawmakers say

President Obama argued Wednesday that Republicans would benefit from passing immigration reform, lawmakers said.

During the meeting with the House Republican caucus, Obama told lawmakers present that passing immigration reform would benefit the GOP, according to The Associated Press. 

"He said that actually implementing immigration reform would actually benefit — I'm just stating what he said — that it would actually benefit Republicans more than it would Democrats," Rep. Scott Rigell (R-Va.) said, the news service reported.

Obama contended that it's in the GOP's "best interest" to pass immigration reform.

Obama said that if Republicans supported immigration reform, they could steal some Hispanic voters away from Democrats, Rep. Pete King (D-N.Y.) said. Polling of the November 2012 presidential election showed Obama winning about 70 percent of the Hispanic vote.

"Right now he gets 75 percent of the Hispanic vote because Republicans are against immigration reform," King said of Obama's argument. "So if we vote for it, he's not going to pick up any new votes in the Hispanic community, and we can."

Obama has made comprehensive reform a top priority of his second term in office. A group of lawmakers in the Senate plan on unveiling a bipartisan immigration reform bill in the next few months. A separate bipartisan group in the House has also been working on an immigration reform compromise.

Obama has said he will push his own bill if lawmakers fail to agree on a compromise soon. According to Rigell, Obama said that there is about a nine-month window for getting "anything really substantive done" on immigration reform. 

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