Despite Republican outrage, President Obama said he would address the American people on Thursday to outline his new immigration policy.

Obama said in a Facebook video that he would explain his proposal and follow that national speech with a Las Vegas appearance on Friday to galvanize support for the new immigration policies.

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"What I am going to be doing," Obama said in his Wednesday Facebook video, "is laying out what I can do with my lawful authority as president to make the system work better even as I work with Congress and encourage them to get a bipartisan comprehensive bill that can solve the entire problem."

A Democrat with knowledge of Obama's plans told The Washington Post it would be a temporary fix providing temporary relief to up to 5 million undocumented immigrants. About 80 percent of them would be allowed temporary protective status while the other 20 percent would receive protections through other measures.

Plans stopped short of providing protection for undocumented parents of children born in the U.S. with citizen status and those who came to the U.S. as infants called "dreamers." Those children were protected through the president's 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Plans also didn't include immigrant farmworkers.

What the new plan does, according to sources, is take deportation threats off the table and allow more high-tech workers from abroad to work in the U.S.. About four million immigrants living illegally in the U.S. would get a new legal status similar to that of the Dreamers, sources said.

The GOP-led Congress will be briefed about the new immigration policy on Thursday. Obama then will travel to Del Sol High School at Las Vegas, a place where he discussed immigration reform last January, to discuss the plan and generate support.

The president has said for months that he wanted some action taken on immigration reform considering the large number of people caught in limbo by lack of action. However, Republicans, obsessed with defunding Obamacare and other side issues, never brought up an alternative plan.

For their part, House Speaker John Boehner issued an immediate rebuff to the proposal while other GOP leaders talked about staging yet another government shutdown in response to the immigration measures.

Frequent Obama critic Sen Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said the new Senate with a Republican majority should block all presidential nominees, except for security positions, in response to the immigration measures.

TagsObama, immigration, dreamers, Congress, illegal immigrants, reubicans, Democrats