President Barack Obama (AP Photo)

(CNSNews.com) - In a statement delivered from the White House this morning, President Barack Obama said that now that Congress has enacted a continuing resolution to fund the government--that includes funding to implement Obamacare--he would like to negotiate with the House with the aim of enacting the immigration bill passed by the Senate earlier this year.

The key provision in that Senate bill would allow illegal aliens currently in the United States to become legal residents here and get on a "path to citizenship."

Critics of the "path to citizenship" call it an "amnesty" because it lets foreign nationals breaking U.S. law--including U.S. immigration law--not only stay in the country but eventually become U.S. citizens.

On June 27, the Senate voted 68-32 to approve the 1,198-page-long immigration bill.

“We should finish the job of fixing our broken immigration system," Obama said.

"In fact," Obama said, "the Senate has already passed a bill with strong bipartisan support that would make the biggest commitment to border security in our history, would modernize our legal immigration system, make sure everyone plays by the same rules, make sure that folks who came here illegally have to pay a fine, pay back taxes, meet their responsibilities."

"That bill has already passed the Senate," said Obama. “It’s sitting there waiting for the House to pass it.

"Now, if the House has ideas on how to improve the Senate bill, let’s hear them," the president said. "Let’s start the negotiations. But let’s not leave this problem to keep festering for another year, or two years, or three years. This can and should get done by the end of this year.”

The bill that the Senate passed not only created a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, but included language specifically stipulating that illegal aliens could not be denied conversion to legal resident status and put on the citizenship path even if they had committed certain crimes on multiple occasions.

“An alien convicted of 3 or more offenses for driving under the influence or driving while intoxicated on separate dates is inadmissible,” says the Senate bill. This means that an alien who has been convicted of 2 DUIs is admissible. It also means an alien who gets 2 DUIs on one day--and then gets a third on another day--is still admissible because he did not get 3 or more DUIs “on separate dates.”

Language on page 777 of the bill appears—on its face—to legitimize counterfeiting and selling up to 2 U.S. passports. That language says:

“MULTIPLE PASSPORTS.—Subject to subsection (b), any person who, during any period of 3 years or less, knowingly—(1) and without lawful authority produces, issues, or transfers 3 or more passports; (2) forges, counterfeits, alters, or falsely makes 3 or more passports; (3) secures, possesses, uses, receives, buys, sells, or distributes 3 or more passports, knowing the passports to be forged, counterfeited, altered, falsely made, stolen, procured by fraud, or produced or issued without lawful authority; or (4) completes, mails, prepares, presents, signs, or submits 3 or more applications for a United States passport, knowing the applications to contain any materially false statement or representation, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”