Immigration Reform 2013: Obama To Talk Immigration On Spanish-Language Television

Four Univision and Telemundo affiliates will host President Obama on Tuesday in what are being billed as "Live from the White House" broadcasts, during which Obama will push immigration reform with an eye on the benefits it could bring to a still-sluggish US economy, according to USA Today. "While in Washington," says the White House press schedule, "the local anchors will broadcast Tuesday from a special location on the South Lawn and spend the day with behind-the-scenes access to the White House and the President's top advisers." The interviews with Obama will be broadcast on Tuesday night.

Obama has largely held his tongue on the attempts of House Republicans to block a comprehensive immigration reform which might offer a path to citizenship for many of the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. White House spokesman Jay Carney told Reuters last week that Obama would push the overhaul, but that "how that manifests itself, what events he may hold, we'll have to see, because we're going to make those judgments as this issue ripens over the next weeks and months." Another White House official said, "We'll speak out, we'll travel, we'll do things with different decibels, depending on what we think will help move the ball."

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But the majority of Obama's efforts have been fairly low-decibel: meeting with groups like the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, sending out economic advisors to make a case for the ways giving legal status to the undocumented will help the United States' economy pick up steam, and sitting down with Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), who helped author the Senate bill. After that last meeting, McCain told Reuters that he thought the president was "walking a careful line here" and called it "the appropriate thing", citing the resistance of House Republicans to being pressured by Obama.

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Following their meeting with the president last week, the two senators stressed that neither they nor the president was pressuring the House. McCain also indicated that the Senate wouldn't discount bills produced through the House's "piecemeal" approach, in which single-issue bills are debated instead of comprehensive ones. "We can work with them on different pieces of legislation. We want legislation that we can go to conference on," he said.

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Schumer called the idea that House Republicans might want to move forward on immigration reform "encouraging". At a House GOP meeting that same day, party members said they wouldn't be held to deadlines.

"I don't sense any urgency," Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) told the Associated Press.