The Gang of Eight and the White House clashed repeatedly in the final week of the immigration reform debate, as a fundamental disagreement over running up the Senate vote led the administration to resist key changes.
The White House grudgingly accepted the border security deal with Republicans, and pushed back at efforts this week to make additional concessions that might have secured more GOP support for the overall bill, according to senators and congressional aides involved in the talks.
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The conflict underscored the extent to which President Barack Obama didn't get all of what he wanted in the Senate bill, as negotiators agreed to a series of compromises aimed at keeping his top domestic priority advancing through Congress.
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The biggest tradeoffs involved border security and the pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants.
The Gang of Eight agreed to "militarize" the Southern border, including spending $30 billion on 19,000 additional border control agents — even though the administration said for months that it didn't need more manpower on a border that it already considered secure.
The negotiators also bucked the White House by linking the legalization program to enforcement benchmarks, hiking the fines on undocumented immigrants, lengthening their wait for a green card, tightening their access to government benefits, and shifting to a point system for legal immigration.
In a statement Thursday, Obama conceded the bill wasn't perfect.
"The bipartisan bill that passed today was a compromise. By definition, nobody got everything they wanted. Not Democrats. Not Republicans. Not me," Obama said. "But the Senate bill is consistent with the key principles for commonsense reform that I — and many others — have repeatedly laid out."
The Senate Democrats' determination to protect the path to citizenship — and attempt to line up almost 70 votes behind it — forced tradeoffs that resulted in a more conservative take on reform than Obama initially wanted.
(Also on POLITICO: Senate passes immigration reform bill)
The legislation now moves onto the House, where Republicans supporters will attempt to convince their party to accept the proposal by arguing that it's moved far from what the White House first sought. This public relations fight could be central to whether the bill gains House traction and what further compromises may be needed to muscle immigration reform into law.
"I can promise you that this is not Obama's bill," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Gang of Eight. "It has triggers, it has border security I could have never dreamed of. It had triggers tied to the pathway citizenship to border security. It has a more legal immigration than the AFL-CIO, Obama would have wanted. This is anything but Obama's bill."
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the bill keeps faith with the president's principles, but "it is a little more centrist."
"The influence of Republicans is clear, but we needed to pass a bill," Schumer said. "The basic concepts have to stay the same. There will be no bill without a path to citizenship, for instance. None."
(Also on POLITICO: Republicans who voted for the bill)
But conservatives who opposed the bill see it as little more than a Democratic wishlist engineered by Schumer and the White House.
"It is fundamentally President Obama's bill," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). "Yes, this is a bill the White House blessed, a process the White House has blessed and a result the White House is very pleased with and they are anxious to see it become law. But it will not."
