
 
 Rand Paul is for normalization, advisers say. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque) 
 
 Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday afternoon that he has not, in fact, endorsed a faster path to citizenship, despite many reports Tuesday morning that he had. 
 
 
 
 Many outlets, including the Washington Post, had reported Paul would back or did back a path to citizenship in his speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. The reports date back to Monday evening, when the Associated Press obtained an advance copy of Paul's remarks. 
 
 Paul clarified in an interview with Post Politics that he is not calling for an expedited path to citizenship, but that he would make it so people don't have to return to their home counties before applying. 
 
 "I didn’t use the word citizenship at all this morning," Paul said. "Basically what I want to do is to expand the worker visa program, have border security and then as far as how people become citizens, there already is a process for how people become citizens. The main difference is I wouldn’t have people be forced to go home. You’d just get in line. But you get in the same line everyone is in." 
 
 In addition to not requiring illegal immigrants to return to their home countries to apply for citizenship, Paul also said on a later conference call that he's not a "stickler" for making them pay penalties. 
 
 Even though Paul would clearly make it easier to become a citizen, he said he would rather not label it a "path to citizenship," because using that phrases means everyone "closes their ears" to the rest of the argument. 
 
 "I think the whole debate on immigration is trapped in a couple of words: path to citizenship and amnesty," he said. "Can’t we just have reform and not refer to them by names?" 
 
 Paul's advisers say there is little difference between the current law and what Paul is proposing, at least when it comes to citizenship. 
 
 "They would get into the back of the line and get no special privileges to do so," said one adviser, who wasn't authorized to comment publicly. "What his plan is extending to them is a quicker path to normalization, not citizenship, and being able to stay, work and pay taxes legally." 
 
 At the root of the confusion appears to be the difference between legal status and citizenship. In addition, there seem to be differing views of what constitutes a "path to citizenship." 
 
 The comprehensive immigration reform plan proposed by a bipartisan "Gang of Eight" senators led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who like Paul is a potential 2016 presidential candidate, does include a clear path to citizenship, and Rubio has embraced that label. 
 
 "The main proposal I am putting forward is Trust but Verify," Paul told Post Politics. "It says that we have to vote in Congress on whether the border is secure. That’s the main difference in what I’m saying and the Gang of Eight. But the gang of eight has a lot of things I may well support." ||||| Paul pledges to be 'part of the solution' on immigration reform. | REUTERS Paul to 'find a place' for illegal immigrants 
 
 Sen. Rand Paul continued his political makeover Tuesday, endorsing what amounts to a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the United States as he transforms from 2010 tea party insurgent to potential 2016 presidential nominee. 
 
 “If you wish to work, if you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you,” Paul said in an address to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, pledging to be “part of the solution” on immigration reform. 
 
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 The Kentucky Republican didn’t use the word “citizenship” in his speech. Instead, he argued for a solution besides “amnesty or deportation” and said conservative Republicans should join the immigration reform debate by “acknowledging we aren’t going to deport 12 million illegal immigrants.” 
 
 ( PHOTOS: Rand Paul’s career) 
 
 In a confernce call that Paul held with reporters later in the day, it became clear that differences between the senator’s plan and the conventional definition of a path to citizenship were few, if they existed at all. 
 
 Paul explained that he would give undocumented immigrants in the United States work visas and allow them to apply for green cards, which sets them on a path to citizenship. The workers would be placed in the same line as immigrants who were applying for a green card from their home country. The outlines of a bipartisan plan pushed by the Senate’s Gang of Eight works similarly, where undocumented immigrants would be able to come forward for a work visa after they pay a fine and back taxes. 
 
 “What I’m saying is you don’t have to go back home, but we also don’t want to put you in front of the line,” Paul said on the call. 
 
 ( PHOTOS: 20 quotes on immigration reform) 
 
 Giving undocumented immigrants either legal status, with rights short of those held by citizens, or citizenship itself would allow them to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation. But Democrats have insisted on full citizenship, arguing anything else would amount to creating a permanent underclass without voting rights. 
 
 The citizenship vs. legal status morass ensnared former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush earlier this month after he released a book arguing only for legal status. Democrats hammered him, and Bush eventually said he could back a pathway, provided it didn’t incentivize future illegal immigration. 
 
 The endorsement of any sort of legal status for illegal immigrants amounts to a remarkable reversal for Paul, who in his first month in the Senate proposed a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship. (On Tuesday’s conference call, Paul said a secure border would make the amendment unnecessary.) While running against an establishment pick in Kentucky’s GOP primary in 2010, he proposed building an underground electric fence along the length of the entire border. 
 
 But in recent months, Paul has said his position was softening. In a February Washington Times op-ed, Paul laid out an extensive plan. 
 
 A stand-out difference between Paul’s plan and the Gang of Eight’s framework is how it would guarantee border security. The bipartisan plan uses a commission of border state leaders to evaluate security, although the final details are unclear. Paul’s plan would require security be certified by the Border Patrol and an Inspector General, and then voted on by Congress “each year for several years.” 
 
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 CORRECTION: Corrected by: Emily Howell @ 03/19/2013 11:39 AM CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story stated that Paul was backing a pathway to citizenship; the story has been updated to include a comment from his spokesperson that Paul was supporting “normalization, not citizenship.” ||||| Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) wants to give visas to America’s 11 million undocumented immigrants that would allow them to stay and work in the country. And if they apply for green cards and eventually become citizens, that’s fine, too. But, for whatever reason, Paul really does not like calling this idea a “path to citizenship.” 
 
 That’s the upshot of a press call Paul held on Tuesday after a daylong struggle to make his position clear. 
 
 “The immigration debate has been trapped and it’s been polarized by two terms: ‘path to citizenship’ and ‘amnesty,’” Paul told reporters. 
 
 Paul delivered a speech on immigration Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C., to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in which he pledged to support reform, but did not mention citizenship. His staff pushed back afterwards against an Associated Press report that characterized his plan as a “path to citizenship,” but after hearing the objections the news agency stood by its original characterization. 
 
 They were right to do so. The plan Paul laid out in his afternoon call sounded identical in principle to plans put forward by a group of bipartisan senators and by the White House, both of which contain a so-called “path to citizenship” that would allow illegal immigrants here today to obtain green cards (after meeting certain conditions) and eventually naturalize. And it was easily more progressive than the proposal outlined by Jeb Bush in his recent book, which would have specifically barred illegal immigrants from becoming citizens. 
 
 “As long as those here want to work, I’d get them work visas, and as long as they want to apply you get in the normal line for citizenship that’s already available, so it’s not a new pathway, it’s an existing pathway,” he said. “And then we need to figure out if the existing pathway isn’t working, how do we fix the existing pathway?” 
 
 Paul even suggested that if green card backlogs grow too long to process a wave of applications from legal immigrants abroad and newly legalized immigrants in America, he’d be open to speeding things up by temporarily adding more slots or some other means. 
 
 “I’m not granting any new pathway or new line — the only thing I’m saying that’s new now is that I don’t think you should have to go back to Mexico to apply,” he said. 
 
 This kind of rhetoric hardly separates Paul from the pro-citizenship crowd. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and President Obama alike routinely describe their favored plan as one in which undocumented immigrants would have to “go to the back of the line” behind legal applicants in order to obtain a green card. And Paul is actually more liberal on the process then some past versions of immigration reform, which would have required undocumented immigrants to briefly return to their home countries to apply for a visa. 
 
 Paul isn’t the first Republican to send mixed signals on citizenship, apparently for fear of using the phrase “path to citizenship.” Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee that will oversee immigration legislation, panicked reformers when he ruled out a “path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants — only to clarify later that he’d be fine with letting them apply for green cards and citizenship through the regular process. ||||| Tea party favorite Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday that the nation's illegal immigrants should be able to become citizens eventually, but amid a furor from conservative activists on the explosive issue he quickly sought to make clear that, while they would not be sent home, they couldn't get in line in front of anyone else. 
 
 What he doesn't support, the Kentucky Republican said, is amnesty or a new pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the country. He said he simply believes they should be able to stay in the country on what he called probationary status. 
 
 "You get in the normal line to citizenship that's already available, so it's not a new pathway, it's an existing pathway," Paul told reporters. 
 
 The dust-up underscored how semantics matter in the volatile debate over immigration, especially for a conservative who may seek the presidency in 2016. Twitter users were already dubbing Paul's stance "Randmesty," while an anti-immigration group, NumbersUSA, deemed his proposal "radical" and predicted that Kentucky residents would be "disappointed and maybe even shocked." 
 
 Paul himself ended up telling reporters on a conference call that both the terms "amnesty" and "path to citizenship" were better avoided because they just cloud the debate and prevent immigration reform from happening. 
 
 "We're trapped if we get lost in those terms," he said. 
 
 Earlier in the day, in a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Paul issued an appeal to conservatives to get involved in the immigration debate and warned that the GOP risks "permanent minority status" if it doesn't win over more Hispanics. 
 
 "Let's start that conversation by acknowledging we aren't going to deport" the millions already in the country, Paul said. "Prudence, compassion and thrift all point us toward the same goal: bringing these workers out of the shadows and into becoming and being taxpaying members of society." 
 
 "Immigration reform will not occur until conservative Republicans, like myself, become part of the solution. I am here today to begin that conversation," he said. 
 
 Paul spoke a day after a Republican National Committee report called on the GOP to support comprehensive immigration reform, though without specifying whether it should include a pathway to citizenship. And like Paul's remarks, the RNC's new stance after significant election losses last fall also was questioned by conservative activists. 
 
 A bipartisan group of eight senators struggling with the same issues has made it clear its legislative package will include a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Their effort could get a boost from Paul's stance. 
 
 The brouhaha surrounding Paul's remarks started Monday night when The Associated Press and others posted excerpts from his prepared speech to the Hispanic business group. In that version provided to the AP by Paul's office, Paul said illegal immigrants should be able to get work visas, enjoy a probationary status "and then enter another five-year period of holding a full green card." Green cards are the permanent resident visas whose holders become eligible after five years to obtain citizenship. 
 
 The AP and others reported that Paul had embraced a pathway to citizenship. But Paul omitted any reference to green cards when he spoke Tuesday morning, and the reference was not included in the text of the speech handed out at the Hispanic Chamber event. Paul's staff said the reference was removed in late edits but offered no further explanation. 
 
 In his speech, Paul never said the word "citizenship," and his aides aggressively contested reports from the AP and others that what he supported was, in fact, a path to citizenship. Conservative bloggers joined in, with the Red State blog declaring: "Feel free to disagree with Sen. Paul if you must. Just don't claim he's pursuing a path to citizenship he never even mentioned." 
 
 It was left to Paul himself, questioned by reporters after his speech and again on a conference call later in the day, to confirm that, yes, he foresaw allowing illegal immigrants to obtain citizenship, although it would be after waiting an unspecified length of time in a probationary status, and would happen only after Congress certified that the border was being secured. But immigrants would not have to return to their home countries first, as they do under current law, Paul said. 
 
 "The biggest change, really, on immigration reform for getting to citizenship would be we're not going to make you go to Mexico," Paul told reporters after his speech. "You have an option to get in the line without going home and that's the main difference from what we have now, as well as you get a work visa if you want to work." 
 
 Paul's newly articulated stance clearly has political overtones. He said this month he's seriously considering a presidential bid in 2016 and Hispanics are an increasingly growing portion of the electorate. Latino voters overwhelmingly backed President Barack Obama last year, helping seal his re-election. 
 
 In his speech, Paul laid out broad elements of a comprehensive immigration overhaul that overlap with the approach contemplated by the Senate's bipartisan Gang of Eight. The bipartisan group hopes to release its legislation next month with provisions for securing the border, improving legal immigration and boosting workplace enforcement, as well as creating a pathway to citizenship. In an interview, Paul said he could foresee backing the Senate group's emerging bill, although he plans to try to amend it on the floor with some of his own ideas. 
 
 Like the Senate group, Paul would aim to secure the border before granting illegal immigrants probationary status. "In order to bring conservatives to this cause, however, those who work for reform must understand that a real solution must ensure that our borders are secure," he said. 
 
 Paul didn't specify how the border should be made more secure, but he said the Border Patrol and an inspector general would have to certify that it is. Congress would also have to agree annually for five years that border security was progressing in order for the other reforms Paul envisions to keep moving forward. 
 
 In year two of his plan, illegal immigrants could begin getting temporary work visas. They would have to wait for an unspecified period of time in a probationary legal status before getting green cards. A bipartisan panel would determine the number of visas per year. High-tech visas would be expanded and a special visa for entrepreneurs would be issued. Illegal immigrants would not be able to get on a citizenship path ahead of anyone already going through the process legally. 
 
 Different from other approaches, Paul's approach would not attempt to crack down on employers by expanding working verification systems, something he says is tantamount to "making every business owner a policeman." 
 
 "My plan will not grant amnesty or move anyone to the front of the line," Paul said in his speech. "But what we have now is de facto amnesty." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Erica Werner on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericawerner ||||| The Associated Press is standing by its report that Sen. Rand Paul intended to back a path to citizenship in his speech Tuesday to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, despite the fact that he did not do so, and despite claims from advisers that the AP's story is wrong. 
 
 "AP stands by its story. In a copy of his prepared speech given to AP by his office Monday night, Sen. Paul made clear that illegal immigrants would have a path towards probationary legal status and then towards a green card, which allows people to eventually apply to become U.S. citizens," Washington Bureau Chief Sally Buzbee said in a statement sent to POLITICO. 
 
 "In the speech he delivered Tuesday, he omitted that point," she continued. "After the speech, however, Paul again confirmed, while speaking to reporters, that under his plan, illegal immigrants would ultimately be able to apply for citizenship after a long and complex process.” 
 
 The AP obtained an advance copy of Sen. Paul’s remarks on Monday and reported that he would be "endorsing a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants." That report led to headlines across news outlets ranging from Fox News to The Washington Post to the Huffington Post claiming that Sen. Paul had endorsed "a pathway to citizenship." 
 
 But in a subsequent statement, Paul's office said the AP story was incorrect: “The AP story was wrong, which spurred a lot of erroneous reports,” it said. “He does not mention ‘path to citizenship’ in his speech at all.” 
 
 One adviser who spoke to the Post said Paul's plan would not make it easier to attain citizenship. 
 
 “They would get into the back of the line and get no special privileges to do so,” the adviser told the Post. “What his plan is extending to them is a quicker path to normalization, not citizenship, and being able to stay, work and pay taxes legally.” 
 
 UPDATE (3:00 p.m.): The AP has now updated its report to note the discrepancy between Paul's prepared remarks and those delivered on Tuesday. 
 
 UPDATE (3:25 p.m.): In a conference call on Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Paul said "the whole debate on immigration is trapped in a couple of words: 'pathway to citizenship' and 'amnesty.' If we get trapped in these terms, either for or against, we're going to get polarized," he said. 
 
 Sen. Paul repeated that line when asked about the AP story: "This is a weird thing about this whole debate, we get trapped and polarized [by] 'pathway to citizenship' and 'amnesty.'... We're not granting amnesty, but if you want to work, we'll find a work visa for you." 
 
 Read more about: Associated Press, Immigration, Rand Paul
– Rand Paul is OK with illegal immigrants being able to obtain citizenship eventually, and he would even make it easier by tweaking current rules and not requiring them to return to their home country first. But he doesn't want anyone to call that a "path to citizenship," a phrase AP used in a headline last night, along with "pathway to citizenship" in its text. The AP used the language after looking at an advance copy of a speech Paul gave today to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and it stands by the terminology, reports Politico. Paul points out that he never used the word "citizenship" in his speech. “I think the whole debate on immigration is trapped in a couple of words: path to citizenship and amnesty,” he tells the Post Politics blog of the Washington Post. “Can’t we just have reform and not refer to them by names?” The blog adds later: "Paul’s advisers say there is little difference between the current law and what Paul is proposing, at least when it comes to citizenship." Others weighing in: Benjy Sarlin, Talking Points Memo: "The plan Paul laid out in his afternoon call sounded identical in principle to plans put forward by a group of bipartisan senators and by the White House, both of which contain a so-called 'path to citizenship' that would allow illegal immigrants here today to obtain green cards (after meeting certain conditions) and eventually naturalize." Erick Erickson, RedState: "Feel free to disagree with Senator Paul if you must. Just don’t claim he’s pursuing a path to citizenship he never even mentioned." Kevin Robillard, Politico: "In a conference call that Paul held with reporters later in the day, it became clear that differences between the senator’s plan and the conventional definition of a path to citizenship were few, if they existed at all." Erica Werner in the AP's latest story: Paul said "the nation's illegal immigrants should be able to become citizens eventually, but amid a furor from conservative activists on the explosive issue he quickly sought to make clear that, while they would not be sent home, they couldn't get in line in front of anyone else." Paul himself on his plan: "Basically what I want to do is to expand the worker visa program, have border security and then as far as how people become citizens, there already is a process for how people become citizens. The main difference is I wouldn’t have people be forced to go home. You’d just get in line. But you get in the same line everyone is in."