Senator faces off with president on immigration

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., is in a rare "he said-he said" faceoff with the president, and is not backing off in the face of White House denials.

"The president cannot say what I said was incorrect," Kyl said Monday.

This weekend, a video showed the Arizona Republican telling supporters that Obama told him the administration will not secure the Southwest border unless it is part of a comprehensive immigration bill. That drew widespread attention from conservative pundits.

Kyl paraphrased Obama as saying, in a private meeting, "the problem is if we secure the border, then you all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform."

"In other words, they're holding it hostage," Kyl said. "They don't want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with comprehensive immigration reform."

White House spokesman Bill Burton on Monday said Kyl's statement is not true.

"The president didn't say that," Burton said. "Senator Kyl knows that the president didn't say that."

Kyl stood by his version Monday afternoon.

"I portrayed our conversation totally accurately," Kyl said, noting "the spokesman for the president wasn't in the room."

The dispute is unusual because Kyl described a one-on-one meeting with Obama, according to both sides. That means Burton's denial reflects Obama's take. Kyl asserted that Obama added a politically volatile twist to the White House's position on immigration reform.

While Obama and administration officials have argued increased border security should happen as part of comprehensive immigration reform, they have not publicly said border security initiatives will not occur without a broader immigration bill.

The administration has announced deployment of National Guard troops to the border. And it increased the number of border security agents there independent of efforts to pass an immigration bill, Burton noted Monday. Immigration reform is widely considered unlikely this year.

Kyl said that despite the dustup, he and Obama had a "very good and lengthy conversation, and that was just one element of it."

"He and I have a different approach to a lot of what has to be done," he added. "And I don't think he was as familiar with the deficiencies of the effort at the border, but what I said was absolutely totally accurate."

Kyl said no one from the White House had contacted him about the different characterizations of the conversation.