Danny Werfel, the controller of the Office of Management and Budget who served as a point man on the controversial automatic spending cuts known as “sequestration,” will start in the new post on May 22.

Obama is racing to get out in front of a scandal that threatens to derail his second-term agenda as Republicans and conservative groups accuse his administration of using the levers of power to persecute political enemies.

“I think we’re going to be able to figure out exactly what happened, who was involved, what went wrong, and we’re going to be able to implement steps to fix it,” Obama said at an unrelated news conference with the Turkish prime minister.

“It is just simply unacceptable for there to even be a hint of partisanship or ideology when it comes to the application of our tax laws,” he added.

Obama has said he did not know about the actions of IRS employees who targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status before the news became public last week.

Obama has faced a series of recent setbacks that could threaten his ability to pursue priorities like immigration reform and a budget deal.

Republicans have hammered the administration’s handling of a deadly militant attack last year on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the Justice Department has been criticized for seizing phone records of journalists from the Associated Press as part of a criminal probe into intelligence leaks.

The IRS scandal has prompted at least three congressional probes, as well as a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Obama fired the agency’s acting director on Wednesday after an internal IRS watchdog found poor management led to an “inappropriate” focus on conservative groups.

Werfel has a track record of coolly responding to harsh questions from lawmakers. He testified multiple times this year about the damaging budget cuts that kicked in after Congress and the White House failed to reach a larger deficit reduction deal.

“The American people deserve to have the utmost confidence and trust in their government, and as we work to get to the bottom of what happened and restore confidence in the IRS, Danny has the experience and management ability necessary to lead the agency at this important time,” Obama said in a statement.

As the much-maligned agency faces withering scrutiny, IRS employees have pulled out of public events.

Lois Lerner, the head of the division that examines nonprofit claims, canceled plans to speak at a graduation ceremony for her law-school alma mater, Western New England University. The IRS softball team canceled a scheduled match with the office of Senator John Cornyn, the Texas Republican said on Facebook.

‘SOMETHING PROFOUNDLY UN-AMERICAN’

On Capitol Hill, the scandal seemed to rewind the clock to 2009 and 2010, when groups aligned with the conservative Tea Party movement were a frequent and vocal presence outside Congress.

At a rally that drew about 100 people from around the country, dozens of Tea Party leaders denounced the IRS and raised questions about the Obama administration’s involvement.

“There is something profoundly un-American about targeting your political opponents,” Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, told the crowd.

Tea Party leaders described how the IRS prevented them from participating in the democratic process – in some cases by delaying their applications until after elections had passed, and in other cases through intrusive questioning that prompted some to give up their organizing effort altogether.

“The IRS just keeps asking questions. Our audit has been so intrusive,” said Susan McLaughlin of the Liberty Tea Party in Liberty Township, Ohio. McLaughlin said her group had been waiting for three years to win tax-exempt status.

In the Senate, Republicans called on the IRS’s internal watchdog to investigate whether the agency had leaked the donor list of the National Organization for Marriage, a conservative group fighting gay-marriage initiatives, to a rival group.

“This is what government intimidation and harassment looks like,” Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said.

Other Republicans kept up the pressure as well.

House Speaker John Boehner accused the Obama administration of “remarkable arrogance” and said the scandal might lead to jail time for IRS officials, pointing to a law that mandates up to five years in prison for government officials found guilty of extortion or “willful oppression.”

Republican Representative Darrell Issa said he wanted to question five IRS employees who may have played key roles in the scandal as his Oversight and Government Reform Committee looks into the matter.

Others said the net should be cast wider.

“The IRS low-level employees who made these egregious decisions need to be dealt with, but we also need to find out who directed them to do it and how high up does it go?” Republican Senator Rob Portman told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Kim Dixon, Tabassum Zakaria, and Caren Bohan; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Jim Loney)

As Republicans and conservative groups accused Obama’s administration of using the levers of power to persecute political enemies, Obama raced to get out in front of a scandal that threatens to derail his second-term agenda.

“I think we’re going to be able to figure out exactly what happened, who was involved, what went wrong, and we’re going to be able to implement steps to fix it,” Obama said at a news conference.

“It is just simply unacceptable for there to even be a hint of partisanship or ideology when it comes to the application of our tax laws,” he added.

Obama has said he did not know about the actions of IRS employees who targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status before the news became public last week.

Obama has faced a series of recent setbacks that could threaten his ability to pursue priorities like immigration reform and a budget deal.

Republicans have hammered the administration’s handling of a deadly militant attack last year on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the Justice Department has been criticized for seizing phone records of journalists from the Associated Press as part of a criminal probe into intelligence leaks.

The IRS scandal has prompted at least three congressional probes, as well as a criminal investigation by the Justice Department. Obama fired the agency’s acting director on Wednesday after an internal IRS watchdog found poor management led to an “inappropriate” focus on conservative groups.

Obama aims to install a new IRS head by the end of this week, according to the White House.

IRS employees pulled out of public events as the much-maligned agency faced withering scrutiny.

Lois Lerner, the head of the division that examines nonprofit claims, canceled plans to speak at a graduation ceremony for her law-school alma mater, Western New England University. The IRS softball team canceled a scheduled match with the office of Senator John Cornyn, the Texas Republican said on Facebook.

‘SOMETHING PROFOUNDLY UN-AMERICAN’

On Capitol Hill, the scandal seemed to rewind the clock to 2009 and 2010, when groups aligned with the conservative Tea Party movement were a frequent and vocal presence outside Congress.

At a rally that drew about 100 people from around the country, dozens of Tea Party leaders denounced the IRS and raised questions about the Obama administration’s involvement.

“There is something profoundly un-American about targeting your political opponents,” Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, told the crowd.

Tea Party leaders described how the IRS prevented them from participating in the democratic process – in some cases by delaying their applications until after elections had passed, and in other cases through intrusive questioning that prompted some to give up their organizing effort altogether.

“The IRS just keeps asking questions. Our audit has been so intrusive,” said Susan McLaughlin of the Liberty Tea Party in Liberty Township, Ohio. McLaughlin said her group had been waiting for three years to win tax-exempt status.

In the Senate, Republicans called on the IRS’s internal watchdog to investigate whether the agency had leaked the donor list of the National Organization for Marriage, a conservative group fighting gay-marriage initiatives, to a rival group.

“This is what government intimidation and harassment looks like,” Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said.

Other Republicans kept up the pressure as well.

House Speaker John Boehner accused the Obama administration of “remarkable arrogance” and said the scandal might lead to jail time for IRS officials, pointing to a law that mandates up to five years in prison for government officials found guilty of extortion or “willful oppression.”

Republican Representative Darrell Issa said he wanted to question five IRS employees who may have played key roles in the scandal as his Oversight and Government Reform Committee looks into the matter.

Others said the net should be cast wider.

“The IRS low-level employees who made these egregious decisions need to be dealt with, but we also need to find out who directed them to do it and how high up does it go?” Republican Senator Rob Portman told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Kim Dixon, Tabassum Zakaria, and Caren Bohan; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Jim Loney)

With Congress preparing to hold hearings on the IRS’s holding conservative groups to extra scrutiny, McConnell said he was “calling on the president to make available, completely and without restriction, everyone who can answer the questions we have as to what was going on at the IRS, who knew about it, and how high it went.”

“No more stonewalling, no more incomplete answers, no more misleading responses, no holding back witnesses, no matter how senior their current or former positions — we need full transparency and cooperation,” McConnell, of Kentucky, said on the Senate floor.

The scandal was ignited on Friday when an IRS official revealed at a meeting of tax lawyers that the agency had inappropriately singled out Tea Party movement and other conservative groups for extra examination of their claims for tax-exempt status.

Obama on Monday said the IRS’s targeting of the Tea Party and other conservative groups for additional tax scrutiny was outrageous and that any IRS employee involved would be held accountable.

But Obama’s words failed to ease the ire of Republicans in Congress and conservative groups, who question how far the IRS went and who set the policy.

Republicans as well as Obama’s fellow Democrats promise congressional hearings that are expected to sap energy from Obama’s legislative agenda, including his push to overhaul the nation’s immigration system.

Citing media reports, McConnell said, “targeting wasn’t limited to an IRS office out in Cincinnati — as the administration suggested last week — but that it reached all the way to IRS headquarters in Washington.”

“What we don’t know at this point is whether it jumped the fence from the IRS to the White House,” the Senate Republican leader said.

“But we do know this: we can’t count on the administration to be forthcoming about the details of this scandal — because so far they’ve been anything but.”

The targeting began in 2010, shortly after the emergence of the conservative Tea Party movement, which helped Republicans, in the election that year, pick up seats in the Senate and control of the House of Representatives.

(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Obama’s comments, during a news conference with visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron, marked the first time the president had spoken publicly about the IRS scandal.

The scandal was ignited last Friday, when an IRS official revealed at a meeting of tax lawyers that the agency had inappropriately singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny of their claims for tax-exempt status.

As lawmakers in both parties expressed outrage on Capitol Hill on Monday, Obama – who said he first learned about the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups on Friday – said that he had “no patience” for such actions by the tax agency.

“The IRS as an independent agency requires absolute integrity, and people have to have confidence that they’re applying … the laws in a nonpartisan way,” Obama said.

While making clear that he considers the IRS scandal a serious concern, Obama took a dimmer view of another issue dominating his administration’s time: the ongoing probe by congressional Republicans into the deadly attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, last September.

That, Obama said, has been a political “sideshow.”

The Benghazi matter flared up again last week after internal emails were made public showing that in the days after the attack, the administration tried to shape “talking points” to explain why four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, had been killed.

Obama rejected Republicans’ claims that the administration tried to cover up the role of Islamist militants in the attack to avoid looking weak on terrorism eight weeks before the presidential election.

Obama said Republicans have had political motives in criticizing him, his staff and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

“The whole issue of this – of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow,” he said. “The whole thing defies logic. And the fact that this keeps on getting churned out, frankly, has a lot to do with political motivations.”

For the White House, the political sniping over Benghazi combined with the new flap over the IRS has placed it on the defensive, just as the administration is trying to bounce back from failing to get a gun-control bill through Congress and continues to wrangle with Republicans over budget and deficit issues.

“This will be another issue that takes the administration way off message,” said Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist.

“There’s no way they can punch through with a positive agenda while investigations of the IRS are going on.”

Yet another potential distraction popped up on Monday, when the Associated Press reported that the Justice Department had secretly obtained two months of telephone records of AP editors and reporters involving what the news agency described as a variety of stories.

In its story on the records seizure, the AP indicated that federal investigators were interested in a May 2012 story that disclosed details of a CIA effort in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.

The seizure is likely to reignite post-9/11 debates over whether the U.S. government, in its efforts to ensure national security, sometimes violates individual rights.

REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS UPSET

The IRS scandal rippled across Capitol Hill, where lawmakers from both political parties heaped criticism on the tax agency on Monday.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a favourite of the conservative Tea Party movement and a potential 2016 presidential candidate, called for the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller.

“(It) is clear the IRS cannot operate with even a shred of the American people’s confidence under the current leadership,” Rubio wrote in a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

Obama’s fellow Democrats joined Republicans in calling for there to be consequences for those responsible for the IRS targeting, which began in 2010 – shortly after the emergence of the Tea Party movement that helped Republicans win control of the House that year.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, promised an investigation by his panel. Republicans in the House of Representatives already had announced they would launch their own investigation.

“Targeting groups based on their political views is not only inappropriate but it is intolerable,” Baucus said in a statement issued by his committee, which oversees the IRS.

The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on the issue on Friday, attended by Miller and J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.

“We must take appropriate action, without any delay or hesitation, to ensure that the IRS remains an impartial agency for America’s taxpayers and our nation’s families and businesses,” said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Obama noted that the U.S. inspector general was investigating the controversy, which focuses on the IRS’s office in Cincinnati.

That office was tasked with examining whether non-profit advocacy groups that claimed to qualify for tax-exempt status were granted it. To qualify for tax-exempt status, groups must limit their activity to advocating for issues or causes, and avoid endorsing political candidates.

“We’ll wait and see what exactly all the details and the facts are. But I’ve got no patience with it,” Obama said. “I will not tolerate it. And we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened.”

(Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis, Susan Heavey, and Roberta Rampton; Editing by David Lindsey and Philip Barbara)

At a news conference with visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron, Obama tried to put his stamp on the two issues, which are overshadowing other policy priorities just months after he took the oath of office.

The Benghazi, Libya, controversy has been simmering for months but flared up last week after internal emails were made public showing the administration trying to shape “talking points” to explain how four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in an attack there.

Obama rejected claims of a cover-up on information about the attacks and said the assertions were made with political motivations aimed at him and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a potential 2016 presidential candidate.

“The whole issue of this – of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow,” he said.

The IRS issue arose on Friday when an official of the agency revealed at a meeting of tax lawyers that it had singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny of their claims for tax-exempt status.

“If in fact IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on, and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that’s outrageous,” Obama told reporters at the White House, noting he first heard about the allegations on Friday himself.

“There’s no place for it. And they have to be held fully accountable. Because the IRS as an independent agency requires absolute integrity, and people have to have confidence that they’re applying … the laws in a nonpartisan way,” he said.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, promised an investigation by his panel, which would join probes that Republicans announced in the House of Representatives last Friday after news of the IRS action first became public.

“Targeting groups based on their political views is not only inappropriate but it is intolerable,” Baucus said in a statement issued by his committee, which oversees the IRS.

Two other Democratic senators, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, seconded calls by Republicans for Obama to punish those responsible for the IRS targeting, which began in 2010 shortly after the emergence of the Tea Party movement that helped Republicans win the House that year.

“The administration should take swift action to get to the bottom of this to ensure those responsible for misconduct are held accountable,” Kaine said.

(Additional reporting by Laura MacInnis, Susan Heavey, and Roberta Rampton; editing by Jackie Frank)

In a practice that drew complaints during the 2012 election campaign, groups with the words “Tea Party” or “patriots” in their names were flagged for closer IRS review when they applied to the agency for tax-exempt status.

“We would like to apologize for that,” said Lois Lerner, director of the IRS tax-exempt office at an American Bar Association conference. She said the practice “was absolutely incorrect and it was inappropriate.”

Lerner said screening of the conservative groups was “absolutely not” influenced by the Obama administration.

In what could be a major embarrassment for the IRS and a potential distraction for President Barack Obama, the matter is under investigation by the IRS inspector general.

“What we know of this is of concern and we certainly find the actions taken, as reported, to be inappropriate,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said at a briefing.

“And we would fully expect the investigation to be thorough and for corrections to be made in a case like this,” he said.

The admission by the IRS drew immediate responses from many Republicans and at least one powerful Democrat.

House of Representatives Republican Leader Eric Cantor vowed a House investigation would follow. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called for a White House review.

CONGRESS TEES UP INQUIRY

Representative Dave Camp, the Republican chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee that oversees the IRS, said he will hold a hearing. “The IRS absolutely must be non-partisan in its enforcement of our tax laws,” Camp said.

Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said his panel has been looking into the IRS’s “failure” to enforce a law that requires tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups be engaged exclusively in social welfare activities and not partisan politics.

He said the latest development “raises a second issue: whether the IRS, to the extent it has enforced its rules, has been impartial in doing so. Both issues require investigation.”

Tax-exempt applications for groups ranging from charities to labour unions are routinely reviewed by IRS civil servants.

Known as 501(c)(4) groups after the section of the tax code that makes them tax-exempt, such organizations can collect money from anonymous donors and spend it on advertising. To stay tax-exempt, they cannot endorse a candidate or a political party.

The number of groups seeking 501(c)(4) status jumped after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 “Citizens United” decision lifting government limits on corporate spending in federal elections.

Such contributions became controversial during the 2012 election season, as groups favouring both major parties financed ad campaigns to try to influence the race between Obama, a Democrat, and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

NO GROUPS DENIED STATUS

Lerner said none of the groups subjected to extra scrutiny by the IRS has been rejected yet for tax-exempt status.

For that reason, a legal damages claim against the IRS by the conservative groups was unlikely, said Marcus Owens, a lawyer at the firm of Caplin & Drysdale.

A former IRS tax-exempt division director, Owens has since represented a range of nonprofit organizations. “It’s hard to find the injury there,” he said, adding that IRS scrutiny historically has focused on trying to determine if 501(c)(4) groups are politically active or not.

Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, which claims 55,000 members nationwide, said in a telephone interview:

“I’m shocked they apologized … Tea Party groups across the country have told stories about having unreasonable delays in getting their non-profit status from the IRS.”

Lerner said targeting of conservative groups was done by revenue agents in Cincinnati “without talking to managers.”

Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer at the firm of Foley & Lardner who represents conservative groups, said she was skeptical managers were not involved. In a letter to the IRS released to reporters, Mitchell demanded answers from the agency.

“The fact that nearly 100 citizens groups received identical, burdensome questionnaires from IRS offices across the nation demonstrates that this was not a few ‘low level’ employees responsible for the effort,” Mitchell wrote. (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Kim Dixon, Mark Felsenthal, Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Philip Barbara)

“What we know of this is of concern and we certainly find the actions taken, as reported, to be inappropriate,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said at a briefing.

The matter is under investigation by the inspector general at the IRS. “And we would fully expect the investigation to be thorough and for corrections to be made in a case like this,” Carney said.

In a practice conservatives complained about during the 2012 election campaign, organizations that used the words “patriots” or “Tea Party” in their tax-exempt status filings were flagged by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for further review.

Lois Lerner, director of the IRS tax-exempt office, said the practice “was absolutely incorrect and it was inappropriate.”

Speaking at an American Bar Association conference in Washington, Lerner said, “We would like to apologize for that.”

The admission triggered a storm of criticism from Republicans. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the Republican-led House of Representatives will investigate.

“The IRS cannot target or intimidate any individual or organization based on their political beliefs,” he said.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called for a White House review to assure that “thuggish practices” were not being used by the government against Americans.

The IRS’s Lerner said screening of the conservative groups was “absolutely not” influenced by the Obama administration. Lerner said career service employees used the political words to short-hand screening.

501(c)(4) GROUPS INCREASE

Tax-exempt applications for groups ranging from hospitals to labor unions are routinely reviewed by IRS civil servants.

Known as 501(c)(4) groups after the section of the tax code that makes them tax-exempt, such organizations can collect money from anonymous donors and spend it on advertising. To stay tax-exempt, they cannot endorse a candidate or a political party.

The number of groups seeking 501(c)(4) status jumped after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 “Citizens United” decision lifting government limits on corporate spending in federal elections.

Such contributions became controversial during the 2012 election season, as groups favoring both major parties financed ad campaigns to try to influence the race between Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

Lerner said none of the groups subjected to extra scrutiny by the IRS has been rejected yet for tax-exempt status.

For that reason, a legal damages claim against the IRS by the conservative groups was unlikely, said Marcus Owens, a lawyer at the firm of Caplin & Drysdale.

Formerly employed by the tax-exempt division of the IRS, Owens has since represented a broad range of nonprofit organizations. “It’s hard to find the injury there,” he said, adding that IRS scrutiny historically has focused on trying to determine if 501(c)(4) groups are politically active or not.

Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, which claims 55,000 members nationwide, said in a telephone interview:

“I’m shocked they apologized … Tea Party groups across the country have told stories about having unreasonable delays in getting their non-profit status from the IRS.”

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Kim Dixon, Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Doina Chiacu)

On bipartisan votes, the panel rejected conservatives’ attempts to thwart implementation of a centerpiece of the bill – a pathway to U.S. citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.

By day’s end leading Democratic and Republican senators said the committee had improved the bill.

The panel, composed of 10 Democrats and eight Republicans, accepted 21 relatively modest amendments that focus largely on border security and increased congressional oversight. All but one amendment were agreed to on bipartisan votes.

Eleven other amendments were rejected or withdrawn, many of them Republican bids to bolster border security in ways that went far beyond the steps spelled out in the bill, while also delaying or even killing proposals to legalize undocumented immigrants.

“It is a better bill now than it was this morning,” said Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, a member of the committee and the Gang of Eight senators who wrote the measure.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, another committee and Gang of Eight member agreed, hailing the amendments as “good-faith improvements…that make our proposal stronger.”

As currently written, the bill would boost funding for border security, revamp visa programs to allow for more high- and low-skilled workers and chart a 13-year path to citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.

The committee is expected to complete work on the bill by the end of this month, sending it to the full Senate to face a tougher test. That debate could extend through June or longer.

Backers will need the support of at least 60 of the chamber’s 100 members to clear what are expected to be Republican-led procedural roadblocks.

Although the Republican Party has urged its members to embrace comprehensive immigration reform as a way to reach out to the growing number of Hispanic voters, a number of Republicans have resisted.

This, despite Hispanics rebuking Republican candidates in last November’s elections, including presidential nominee Mitt Romney, with 71 percent of them voting to re-elect Obama.

Many Republicans favor an incremental approach, one that would focus more on strengthening the 1,969-mile (3,170-km) U.S.-Mexican border. They want to do so without a pathway to citizenship, which critics denounce as “amnesty”, for those who entered the United States illegally or overstayed visas.

Throughout the day, two Republican co-sponsors of the bill, Flake and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, joined with Democrats on critical issues to protect the legalization provision from being derailed.

The voting pattern left the most conservative members predicting the eventual demise of the legislation.

“The committee has voted down every serious border security amendment today,” said Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz. “If it doesn’t have real border security, it will not pass (Congress).”

Schumer angrily rejected Cruz’s characterization, saying, “It’s tough as nails.”

In roughly eight hours, the committee plowed through about 30 of the 300 amendments submitted.

Some of the amendments are designed to appeal to the Democratic majority, as well as many Republicans, as ways to improve the measure, which would be the first comprehensive change to immigration laws since 1986.

Others are seen as possible ways to kill it. Four of the “Gang of Eight” senators who crafted the complex measure are on the committee, and those two Democrats and two Republicans have agreed to jointly oppose any amendment seen as a “poison pill.”

AVOIDING ‘MISTAKES OF THE PAST’

The day began with a warning from the panel’s top Republican that he would make the process as long and “arduous” as possible.

“I plan to ask many questions throughout this process,” Iowa Senator Charles Grassley warned. “I want to know how the bill doesn’t repeat the mistakes of the past.”

Grassley, in a statement, promised an “arduous” and “robust” debate.

Grassley followed up with an amendment to require that the Obama administration achieve full control of illegal immigration at every part of the U.S. border before any undocumented people now in the United States could be considered for legal status.

“This amendment would set a standard that would basically delay probably forever” the legalization of the 11 million, Schumer said.

The committee defeated a move by Cruz to delay legalizing illegal immigrants until 40,000 more border patrol agents were hired to join the 21,000 already there. Opponents said that would cost as much as $40 billion and take 10 years to achieve.

POLL BACKS IMMIGRATION POLICY OVERHAUL

The kickoff of Senate Judiciary Committee debate on the bill came as a new Pew Research Center poll found 75 percent of Americans believed immigration policy needed major changes and 73 percent said there should be a way for illegal immigrants to stay in the United States.

But less than half, 44 percent, said they favored allowing illegal residents to apply for citizenship.

During a break, Schumer told reporters he worried “all the time” about a Democratic amendment that Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy has offered that would cover same-sex couples in the bill’s new immigration reform policies. He said the Gang of Eight was evenly split over that amendment.

It was not yet clear whether Leahy will try to attach that amendment to the bill during the committee’s work on the bill or possibly wait until the bill reaches the full Senate.

The panel is to resume work on Tuesday.

Negotiations on a bill in the more conservative Republican-led House of Representatives slogged on.

According to one House source familiar with the negotiations, disagreements remained over several important matters, including how many low-skilled workers should be allowed into the United States for jobs ranging from cooks and hotel maids to construction workers.

(Editing by Fred Barbash, Jackie Frank, Peter Cooney and Bob Burgdorfer)

On bipartisan votes, the panel rejected conservatives’ attempts to thwart implementation of a centerpiece of the bill – a pathway to U.S. citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.

By day’s end leading Democratic and Republican senators said the committee had improved the bill.

The panel, composed of 10 Democrats and eight Republicans, accepted 21 relatively modest amendments that focus largely on border security and increased congressional oversight. All but one amendment were agreed to on bipartisan votes.

Eleven other amendments were rejected or withdrawn, many of them Republican bids to bolster border security in ways that went far beyond the steps spelled out in the bill, while also delaying or even killing proposals to legalize undocumented immigrants.

“It is a better bill now than it was this morning,” said Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, a member of the committee and the Gang of Eight senators who wrote the measure.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, another committee and Gang of Eight member agreed, hailing the amendments as “good-faith improvements…that make our proposal stronger.”

As currently written, the bill would boost funding for border security, revamp visa programs to allow for more high- and low-skilled workers and chart a 13-year path to citizenship for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.

The committee is expected to complete work on the bill by the end of this month, sending it to the full Senate to face a tougher test. That debate could extend through June or longer.

Backers will need the support of at least 60 of the chamber’s 100 members to clear what are expected to be Republican-led procedural roadblocks.

Although the Republican Party has urged its members to embrace comprehensive immigration reform as a way to reach out to the growing number of Hispanic voters, a number of Republicans have resisted.

This, despite Hispanics rebuking Republican candidates in last November’s elections, including presidential nominee Mitt Romney, with 71 percent of them voting to re-elect Obama.

Many Republicans favor an incremental approach, one that would focus more on strengthening the 1,969-mile (3,170-km) U.S.-Mexican border. They want to do so without a pathway to citizenship, which critics denounce as “amnesty”, for those who entered the United States illegally or overstayed visas.

Throughout the day, two Republican co-sponsors of the bill, Flake and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, joined with Democrats on critical issues to protect the legalization provision from being derailed.

The voting pattern left the most conservative members predicting the eventual demise of the legislation.

“The committee has voted down every serious border security amendment today,” said Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz. “If it doesn’t have real border security, it will not pass (Congress).”

Schumer angrily rejected Cruz’s characterization, saying, “It’s tough as nails.”

In roughly eight hours, the committee plowed through about 30 of the 300 amendments submitted.

Some of the amendments are designed to appeal to the Democratic majority, as well as many Republicans, as ways to improve the measure, which would be the first comprehensive change to immigration laws since 1986.

Others are seen as possible ways to kill it. Four of the “Gang of Eight” senators who crafted the complex measure are on the committee, and those two Democrats and two Republicans have agreed to jointly oppose any amendment seen as a “poison pill.”

AVOIDING ‘MISTAKES OF THE PAST’

The day began with a warning from the panel’s top Republican that he would make the process as long and “arduous” as possible.

“I plan to ask many questions throughout this process,” Iowa Senator Charles Grassley warned. “I want to know how the bill doesn’t repeat the mistakes of the past.”

Grassley, in a statement, promised an “arduous” and “robust” debate.

Grassley followed up with an amendment to require that the Obama administration achieve full control of illegal immigration at every part of the U.S. border before any undocumented people now in the United States could be considered for legal status.

“This amendment would set a standard that would basically delay probably forever” the legalization of the 11 million, Schumer said.

The committee defeated a move by Cruz to delay legalizing illegal immigrants until 40,000 more border patrol agents were hired to join the 21,000 already there. Opponents said that would cost as much as $40 billion and take 10 years to achieve.

POLL BACKS IMMIGRATION POLICY OVERHAUL

The kickoff of Senate Judiciary Committee debate on the bill came as a new Pew Research Center poll found 75 percent of Americans believed immigration policy needed major changes and 73 percent said there should be a way for illegal immigrants to stay in the United States.

But less than half, 44 percent, said they favored allowing illegal residents to apply for citizenship.

During a break, Schumer told reporters he worried “all the time” about a Democratic amendment that Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy has offered that would cover same-sex couples in the bill’s new immigration reform policies. He said the Gang of Eight was evenly split over that amendment.

It was not yet clear whether Leahy will try to attach that amendment to the bill during the committee’s work on the bill or possibly wait until the bill reaches the full Senate.

The panel is to resume work on Tuesday.

Negotiations on a bill in the more conservative Republican-led House of Representatives slogged on.

According to one House source familiar with the negotiations, disagreements remained over several important matters, including how many low-skilled workers should be allowed into the United States for jobs ranging from cooks and hotel maids to construction workers. (Editing by Fred Barbash, Jackie Frank, Peter Cooney and Bob Burgdorfer)

Only the two Republican co-authors of the bill, Senators
Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,
voted with the panel’s Democrats to defeat the Republican plan
on a 12-6 vote.

The vote, which was not a surprise, came in the first hours
of the first day of what is expected to be a weeks-long effort
to agree on a comprehensive immigration bill that would be sent
to the full Senate. The committee’s 10 Democrats and eight
Republicans were prepared to argue over as many as 300
amendments to the overhaul of U.S. immigration laws crafted by
the bipartisan “Gang of 8″ senators.

Some of the proposed amendments are designed to appeal to
the Democratic majority as ways to improve the measure, while
others are seen as ways to possibly kill it. Four of the
senators who crafted the complex measure are on the committee,
and these two Democrats and two Republicans have agreed to
jointly oppose any amendment seen as a “poison pill.”

The day began with a warning from the panel’s top Republican
that he would make the process as long and “arduous” as
possible.

“I plan to ask many questions throughout this process,” Iowa
Senator Charles Grassley warned. “I want to know how the bill
doesn’t repeat the mistakes of the past.” Grassley, in a
statement, promised an “arduous” and “robust” debate.

Grassley followed up with an amendment to require that the
Obama administration achieve full control against illegal
immigration of every part of the U.S. border before any of the
undocumented people currently in the United States could be
considered for legal status.

As currently written, the legislation would begin the
legalization process almost immediately after enactment, while
the administration simultaneously begins a new border security
program.

“This amendment would set a standard that would basically
delay probably forever” the legalization of the 11 million,
argued Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, one of
the Gang of 8.

This early test vote will not end what is expected to be a
tense argument over the next several weeks over whether the
southwestern U.S. border is adequately secured and whether
illegal immigrants, many with deep roots in the United States,
should be rewarded with a pathway to citizenship.

POLL BACKS IMMIGRATION POLICY OVERHAUL

The kick-off of Senate Judiciary Committee debate on the
bill came as a new Pew Research Center poll found that 75
percent of Americans believe that immigration policy needs major
changes and 73 percent say there should be a way for illegal
immigrants to stay in the United States.

But less than half, 44 percent, said they favored allowing
undocumented residents to apply for citizenship.

The opening day of the debate reflected both the deep
divisions and high hopes surrounding a measure that would put 11
million illegal residents on a path to citizenship and totally
revamp the criteria for who gets into the United States and for
what purpose.

Before the session began, a group of spectators with the
words “Campaign for Citizenship” emblazoned across their white
T-shirts stood in a circle in the hearing room, their hands
raised above their heads, for a silent prayer.

The Rev. Alvin Herring of Washington, D.C., told Reuters:
“It’s going to take prayer and it’s going to take us acting on
our prayers” in order to get immigration legislation enacted.

Despite those prayers, senators quickly got into some heated
exchanges.

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a vigorous
opponent of the bill, contended it would bring 30 million new
immigrants into the United States over the next 10 years,
costing Americans jobs and hurting the U.S. economy.

Schumer rejected that claim and invoking a phrase that
haunted Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney last year,
asked, “Do you believe they should all be self-deported?” Romney
had suggested that life for the 11 million should be made so
uncomfortable that they would simply “self-deport.”

The stance was seen contributing to Hispanic voters’
overwhelming rejection of Republican candidates in 2012
elections.

At another stage in the debate, Graham caused a stir in the
room when he said that immigrants cross the southwestern border
with Mexico because they “live in hell holes and they want to
live here.”

Graham was making the argument that more border fencing will
not deter them while the bill’s move to improve foreigners’
legal access to jobs would help fix security problems.

During a break, Schumer told reporters that he worries “all
the time” about a Democratic amendment Judiciary Committee
Chairman Patrick Leahy has offered that would cover same sex
couples in the bill’s new immigration reform policies. He said
the Gang of 8 was evenly split over that amendment.

The panel’s work could stretch through May, and if it agrees
on legislation, the full Senate is likely to debate it
throughout June.

But several Republicans on the committee – and in the full
Senate – are skeptical of legalizing the millions of people who
either came into the United States illegally over the past 27
years or overstayed their visas.

Instead, they want a more limited immigration bill that
mostly concentrates on other aspects of the legislation,
including further securing U.S. borders and creating more visas
for skilled workers to help American high-tech companies.

Meanwhile, negotiations on a bill in the more conservative
Republican-led House of Representatives slogged on.

According to one House source familiar with the
negotiations, disagreements remained over several important
policy matters, including how many low-skilled workers should be
allowed into the United States for jobs ranging from cooks and
hotel maids to construction workers.

This was one of the most contentious issues during
negotiations between the AFL-CIO labor organization and the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce in the run-up to introduction of the Senate
bill.

Marshall Fitz, an immigration specialist at the
Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress, said that
besides policy disagreements, House members also face many
political and strategic questions.

There is widespread belief that for a bill to pass the
House, it will have to be significantly more conservative than
the Senate bill, which some immigration advocacy groups already
complain contains overly rigorous requirements.

“Democrats in the (House) group are rightly wary of signing
onto a bill that is significantly to the right of what the
Senate is doing,” Fitz said.

(Editing by Fred Barbash and Jackie Frank)