Eric Cantor says undocumented children should be offered citizenship

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said on Tuesday that the children of illegal immigrants should be granted a path to citizenship, providing a clue about how the GOP-controlled House may tackle immigration reform this year.

"A good place to start is with the kids," Cantor said during his speech at the American Enterprise Institute. "One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents. It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home."

Earlier on Tuesday, Cantor declined to endorse a bipartisan immigration reform blueprint in the Senate, which calls for a gradual path to citizenship for most of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants. Whether to legalize most of that group is likely to be a sticking point between Democrats and Republicans as they hash out a reform plan.