WASHINGTON — The White House yesterday backed off its immigration-reform proposal that set off a storm over the weekend as Republicans bashed the president for failing to include them in talks and called his plan “dead on arrival.”
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on ABC’s “This Week” described the White House proposal as a plan B in the event that lawmakers don’t agree on their own proposal. “Let’s make sure that it doesn’t have to be proposed,” he said.
The Obama plan was leaked to the media on Saturday and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) immediately called it a “half-baked” and “seriously flawed” proposal that would be “dead on arrival” in Congress.
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, is playing a critical role in the debate as one of a group of eight bipartisan senators trying to negotiate a package. The White House bill includes a path to citizenship over eight years for undocumented immigrants.
Fellow Republicans yesterday joined Rubio in criticizing the Obama plan for what they called rewarding illegal immigrants for breaking the law.