President Obama said Wednesday that the weekend leak of his administration's preferred immigration plan would not undermine the bipartisan effort in the Senate to craft legislation providing a pathway to citizenship.
"It certainly did not jeopardize the entire process. The negotiations are still moving forward," Obama said during an interview with San Antonio's Univision affiliate. "Information floats out of Washington all the time; that shouldn't prevent anybody from moving forward."
On Tuesday, Obama reached out to key Senate Republicans in an effort to calm tensions after the White House's plan was greeted angrily by GOP negotiators. The president placed calls to Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), each of whom had accused Obama of threatening negotiations with the release of his plan.
Obama's bill does not tie a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants to new border security measures and does not create a new visa exit system — two provisions Republicans have insisted on in negotiations. In a statement, Rubio described the plan as "dead on arrival."
But on Wednesday, the president said the fact that the White House had been independently developing a proposal should not have surprised Senate Republicans.
"I've said repeatedly that I want Congress to go ahead and negotiate and get a bill done. But what I've also said is we're preparing a bill so that if Congress doesn't do its job, we're going to go ahead and put a bill on the floor of the United States Senate," Obama said.
Obama's calls on Tuesday appeared to smooth the waters with negotiators across the aisle, with spokesmen for the Republican senators issuing optimistic statements following the conversations.
For more on Obama's comments, click here.
