An highly-anticipated immigration proposal unveiled Tuesday has disappointed gay rights groups.

The proposed legislation by the so-called “gang of eight” senators leaves out LGBT families.

“We are very disappointed it is not yet included at this point,” Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said of the bill's lack of provisions for gay couples.

“The bill does not contain the crucial principles of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA), which would provide a mechanism for U.S. citizens to sponsor their same-sex foreign partners for citizenship,” she added.

Despite the exclusion, President Barack Obama, who unveiled an immigration framework in January which did include protections for binational gay couples, endorsed the proposal.

“This bill is clearly a compromise, and no one will get everything they wanted, including me,” Obama said. “But it is largely consistent with the principles that I have repeatedly laid out for comprehensive reform. … I urge the Senate to quickly move this bill forward and, as I told Senators [Chuck] Schumer and [John] McCain, I stand willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that comprehensive immigration reform becomes a reality as soon as possible.”

Speaking to gay weekly Metro Weekly, Rachel Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a Washington D.C.-based group that lobbies for the rights of LGBT immigrants, described the proposal as “not comprehensive.”

“The reality is that when the Uniting American Families Act is not in there and there is no way that a family that has been living in exile and wants to return home to the U.S., or a family that is separated and there is no way to be reunited, or a family that has been here and has been moving from one visa to another trying to make sure they stay in status and can stay together and that couple is looking for permanency, there is nothing in here for those families, and that is not comprehensive,” Tiven said.

Advocates are now looking for a Senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hear the bill, to sponsor an amendment to the bill.

“We've always known that our best shot would be at the committee level,” Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest gay rights advocate, told The Washington Post. “The goal is to get into the underlying bill. How that happens is not as important as the fact that it happens.”

The issue could become moot in June after the Supreme Court issues a ruling on a legal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA prevents immigration officials from recognizing the legal marriages of gay and lesbian couples. Without the provision, a gay American could sponsor an immigrant spouse for citizenship in the same way straight couples can.