Obama Backs Bill to Overhaul Immigration as Debate Is Set

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For Mr. Obama, who has picked his shots in the immigration debate to avoid stirring partisan anger on Capitol Hill, it was a moment of promise and peril. While he threw his weight behind the bill, he conceded that it would not satisfy all sides and said he anticipated a bruising fight over issues like border security and the path to citizenship.

The president, however, may have more leverage than in previous battles, not least because many Republicans believe rewriting the immigration laws is critical for the long-term viability of their party given the nation’s demographic shifts, even if doing so risks alienating parts of their base.

Republican willingness to weigh significant changes in immigration policy was evident in the 84-to-15 vote to begin what is expected to be a monthlong debate on the bill, a lopsided majority that comprised 52 Democrats, 2 independents and 30 Republicans. The opponents were all Republicans.

Advocates hailed the vote as an encouraging sign for the measure’s eventual passage. But Senate veterans warned that the procedural victory did not preclude Republicans from ultimately rejecting the legislation, which would provide a path to citizenship for 11 million people who are in the country illegally.

“This bill isn’t perfect; it’s a compromise,” the president said at a carefully choreographed White House appearance with advocates of reform. “Going forward, nobody is going to get everything they want. Not Democrats, not Republicans, not me.”

Though the Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, often an impediment to Democratic initiatives, voted to allow debate, he said he would vote against the bill unless major changes were made. “These include, but are not limited to, the areas of border security, government benefits and taxes,” he said.

The House speaker, John A. Boehner, said he feared that the Senate bill “doesn’t go far enough.” Speaking on ABC News before the vote, Mr. Boehner said he had “real concerns with the Senate bill,” especially on border security and internal enforcement.

A vote to allow a debate is no guarantee of a bill’s passage: the Senate cleared that threshold on legislation to tighten the nation’s gun laws, but its key provision, to tighten background checks on gun buyers, still went down to defeat. At the same time, this procedural vote was larger than one in 2007, when the Senate last debated immigration reform, and Mr. Obama was clearly determined to seize the moment.

“If you’re serious about actually fixing the system, then this is the vehicle to do it,” Mr. Obama declared. “If you’re not serious about it, if you think that a broken system is the best America can do, then I guess it makes sense to try to block it.”

Speaking in the East Room, Mr. Obama surrounded himself with supporters of the bill, including a former police chief in Los Angeles and New York, William J. Bratton; Thomas J. Donahue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Julián Castro, the mayor of San Antonio; Steve Case, an entrepreneur and a founder of AOL; and Richard L. Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

While Mr. Obama speaks about the need to overhaul the immigration system at schools and factories across the country, the East Room event was his most concerted push for it since he spoke in Las Vegas in January, around the time a group of Republican and Democratic senators presented a draft framework for legislation.

That speech, analysts said, drew a positive response from some influential Republican lawmakers, and the White House appeared to be trying to replicate the experience. But they warned not to overestimate Mr. Obama’s role in the debate now.

“It propels it forward, but this has already got a lot of juice,” said Angela Maria Kelley, an expert on immigration at the Center for American Progress. “In the Senate, there’s a lot of clarity about people’s positions.”

Other experts said Mr. Obama had learned from hard experience during the health care and budget debates about the right time to lie low and the right time to insert himself in the process.

“There’s no question that the president has a delicate dance,” said Ben Johnson, the executive director of the American Immigration Council. “He’s got to strike the right tone and the right balance of using the office effectively and not trampling on the process that’s currently under way.”

A senior White House official said Mr. Obama’s involvement was important because the bill’s success would hinge on winning the support of Hispanic voters, and “there is no Republican with the credibility to sell this to that community — only the president can.”

On Tuesday, though, senators seemed more immersed in their own debate than in reacting to Mr. Obama.

“Well, he doesn’t vote in the Senate anymore, so right now we’re just focused on getting it passed in the Senate in a responsible way,” said Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who was one of the architects of the bill and is one of his party’s most prominent Hispanics.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said the Democrats “promised immigration reform in 2009, they didn’t deliver, so they need to step up to the plate there.”

Another member of the so-called Gang of Eight behind the bill, Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said Mr. Obama’s remarks echoed the principles in the legislation, but added of Republicans, “Some of them have Obamaphobia, so no matter what he does, they won’t be happy.”

Mr. Boehner said he expected that the “House bill will be to the right of where the Senate is,” but he would not say whether he expected any legislation that came out of the House to include a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Mr. Obama, in an attempt to allay fears about immigration changes, said the bill before the Senate included the tightest border control provisions in American history. He said twice that illegal crossings were “near their lowest levels in decades.”

But the president also insisted on a path to citizenship for immigrants here illegally — a provision that has continued to be a sticking point between the senators who drafted the legislation and conservative Republicans, especially in the House, who believe that approach represents amnesty for those who broke the law to enter or stay in the country.

The process, he said, would be long and arduous, requiring people to pay taxes as well as a penalty, learn English, and then go to the back of the line behind applicants for American citizenship who entered the country lawfully. The average wait would be 13 years, he said.

“This is no cakewalk,” he said, “but it’s the only way we can make sure that everyone who’s here is playing by the same rules.”