“The group is now preparing to shift to a very public sales job.”

Nation-rapist Patrick Leahy

Politico is helping to grease the skids with some NBC/Wall Street Journal pro-amnesty pollaganda, a la what preceded the New York State Legislature’s vote to pass pro-homosexual “marriage.”

“But Republican opposition melts away after respondents were told the pathway required paying fines and back taxes and passing a criminal background check. “

Sure people will agree with you, if you tell a big enough whopper about what that agreement will entail.

None of the first four commenters at Politico was fooled.

John J.Johnson•a day ago ·

Hey all you legal immigrants, I bet you feel dumb now for playing by the rules.

M S•21 hours ago

Gang of Traitors more like it.

FREDERICK•16 hours ago

Gangs belong in ghettos and places like China and the former Soviet Union, but not in a representative republic. 8 men should not determine the outcome of anything for 330 million people!

GrandmaRubyRedShoes•17 hours ago

Big Sis and Obama have no intention of securing the border. Big Sis tells us the borders never been more secure. Wink..wink. Illegals are rushing to America to get in line for amnesty.

FREDERICK to GrandmaRubyRedShoes•16 hours ago

In record numbers! They know it is coming, and the fiscal impact on this nation will be the final nail in our bankrupt coffin!

(Also on Politico: Can Gang of Eight Stay Tight?)

(Also on POLITICO: Poll: 64 percent back path to citizenship)

Senate gang aims for Tuesday announcement By Carrie Budoff Brown April 11, 2013, 4:37 p.m. EDT Politico

The Senate Gang of Eight has completed its member-level negotiations and plans to spend the next few days reviewing the legislation ahead of an announcement early next week, according to senators and aides.

The end of the intensive months-long talks all but guarantees that immigration reform will move forward in the Senate, defying predictions that the issue was too divisive to earn the support of a group that includes Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on the right and New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez on the left.

[N.S.: Wow. The group includes a Republican Reconquista and a Democratic Reconquista. How politically diverse!]

“All issues that rise to the member level have been dealt with,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a leader of the Gang of Eight, said in a statement. “All that’s left is the drafting.”

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), another member of the group, said an announcement is likely to be Tuesday.

The group is now preparing to shift from the private negotiations to a very public sales job, one that requires holding together a delicate coalition of labor, business, conservatives and liberals through a Judiciary Committee markup and a long floor debate.

(Also on POLITICO: Poll: 64 percent back path to citizenship)

Schumer is scheduled to appear Sunday on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

And Rubio’s chief of staff, Cesar Conda, took to Twitter Thursday to try to frame the controversial elements of the bill on his boss’s terms. In an unusually overt break from the group’s no-leak policy, Conda outlined the pathway to citizenship — although he divulged details that were already widely assumed to be part of the bill.

The country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants seeking a provisional legal status — known as Registered Provisional Immigrant Status — would need to pass a criminal background check, and pay a fee and fine, Conda wrote.

Rubio, along with the rest of the Gang of Eight, initially proposed requiring immigrants to pay back taxes before receiving the provisional status. But that requirement is not part of the bill, according to one source familiar the plan.

Conda wrote only that immigrants who achieve that provision status would need to pay taxes. They would also be barred from accessing Obamacare and other government benefit programs, he wrote.

Recent arrivals would not qualify for the provisional status, Conda wrote.

“Senate #immigrationreform freezes illegal population. No special pathway. No amnesty,” Conda tweeted.

Conda wrote that the government cannot issue green cards following a 10-year waiting period unless certain milestones are met, including establishing a new southern border security plan, a mandatory worker verification program, and a new electronic exit system at airports and seaports to track visas.

(PHOTOS: 9 wild immigration quotes)

But some conservatives didn’t buy it.

“Are you trying too hard to sound tough? Border security shouldn’t take that long to enact, if administration actually wanted it,” Washington Examiner columnist Byron York tweeted to Conda.

Conda responded: “Multiple triggers ensure much of security and enforcement measures will be in place long before this happens.”

Manu Raju contributed to this report.