Obama Will Seek Citizenship Path in One Fast Push

Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats will propose the changes in one comprehensive bill, the officials said, resisting efforts by some Republicans to break the overhaul into smaller pieces — separately addressing young illegal immigrants, migrant farmworkers or highly skilled foreigners — which might be easier for reluctant members of their party to accept.

The president and Democrats will also oppose measures that do not allow immigrants who gain legal status to become American citizens one day, the officials said.

Even while Mr. Obama has been focused on fiscal negotiations and gun control, overhauling immigration remains a priority for him this year, White House officials said. Top officials there have been quietly working on a broad proposal. Mr. Obama and lawmakers from both parties believe that the early months of his second term offer the best prospects for passing substantial legislation on the issue.

Mr. Obama is expected to lay out his plan in the coming weeks, perhaps in his State of the Union address early next month, administration officials said. The White House will argue that its solution for illegal immigrants is not an amnesty, as many critics insist, because it would include fines, the payment of back taxes and other hurdles for illegal immigrants who would obtain legal status, the officials said.

The president’s plan would also impose nationwide verification of legal status for all newly hired workers; add visas to relieve backlogs and allow highly skilled immigrants to stay; and create some form of guest-worker program to bring in low-wage immigrants in the future.

A bipartisan group of senators has also been meeting to write a comprehensive bill, with the goal of introducing legislation as early as March and holding a vote in the Senate before August. As a sign of the keen interest in starting action on immigration, White House officials and Democratic leaders in the Senate have been negotiating over which of them will first introduce a bill, Senate aides said.

“This is so important now to both parties that neither the fiscal cliff nor guns will get in the way,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Democrat who is a leader of the bipartisan discussions.

A similar attempt at bipartisan legislation early in Mr. Obama’s first term collapsed amid political divisions fueled by surging public wrath over illegal immigration in many states. But both supporters and opponents say conditions are significantly different now.

Memories of the results of the November election are still fresh here. Latinos, the nation’s fastest-growing electorate, turned out in record numbers and cast 71 percent of their ballots for Mr. Obama. Many Latinos said they were put off by Republicans’ harsh language and policies against illegal immigrants.

After the election, a host of Republicans, starting with Speaker John A. Boehner, said it was time for the party to find a more positive, practical approach to immigration. Many party leaders say electoral demographics are compelling them to move beyond policies based only on tough enforcement.

Supporters of comprehensive changes say that the elections were nothing less than a mandate in their favor, and that they are still optimistic that Mr. Obama is prepared to lead the fight.

“Republicans must demonstrate a reasoned approach to start to rebuild their relationship with Latino voters,” said Clarissa Martinez de Castro, the director of immigration policy at the National Council of La Raza, a Latino organization. “Democrats must demonstrate they can deliver on a promise.”

Since the election, Mr. Obama has repeatedly pledged to act on immigration this year. In his weekly radio address on Saturday, he again referred to the urgency of fixing the immigration system, saying it was one of the “difficult missions” the country must take on.

Parallel to the White House effort, Mr. Schumer and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, have been meeting with a group of at least four other colleagues to write a bill. Republicans who have participated include John McCain of Arizona, who has supported comprehensive legislation in the past; Jeff Flake, also of Arizona, who is newly elected to the Senate; and Mike Lee of Utah. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida participated in one meeting last month.

Democrats in the meetings include Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat; Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado.

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What Citizenship Means

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – He didn’t deliver a clear second-term agenda, or a speech that thrilled. He didn’t explain how his re-election will spell an end to Washington’s policy stalemate. But President Obama did offer a sort of consolation prize in his convention speech: a new theme to sum up his case against Mitt Romney.

That theme was citizenship, and specifically the obligations that American citizens have to each other and to the society they re-create every day. The president’s description of Republican disdain for those bonds – a government that says “you’re on your own,” in the words of one his former economists, Jared Bernstein – crystallized what is at stake in this election more effectively than most of his previous speeches.

Dispatches and quick takes from Charlotte.

“This country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations,” he said. “We, the people, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only, what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.”

That sense of responsibility is lacking, he noted, when banks trick families into signing mortgages they cannot afford, making the case for financial regulation and a consumer protection agency that Republicans have fought at every turn.

It is lacking when government cuts money for teachers who offer a little girl an escape from poverty, or a Pell grant for college that could make her a scientist or a president – “and it is in our power to give her that chance,” he said, in contrast to a party that favors such cuts.

It is lacking, he said, when a political party systematically makes it harder for poor people and minorities to vote. When lawmakers ridicule providing health coverage to the uninsured. And when retirees are presented with a limited voucher to cover their medical needs,instead of a Medicare program.

And it is particularly lacking when the wealthy are delighted to write $10 million checks to buy elections but are unwilling to pay a few thousand more in taxes to pay for the obligations of citizenship.

“This is what the election comes down to,” he said. “Over and over, we’ve been told by our opponents that bigger tax cuts and fewer regulations are the only way, that since government can’t do everything, it should do almost nothing.” But this isn’t a country, he said, that believes people should not get sick if they don’t have health insurance, or breathe pollution for the sake of industrial progress.

I was one of those who had hoped Mr. Obama would explain how a second term would be different from the first, but instead he had a slightly more grim and purposeful message to convey: government has a significant role to play in keeping society from fraying, and someone has to fight for it against the forces of individualism. That battle, more than any specific policy, is what he wants to continue in another term.

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