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Leading Charge, Taking the Fire: Chairman's Bill Rallies His Foes on Immigration

Posted on: Sunday, 26 March 2006, 03:03 CST

By Craig Gilbert and Daniel W. Reilly, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mar. 26--Washington -- As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Sensenbrenner is a pivotal figure in the fight over immigration.

But lately he has become more than that.

With the issue boiling over politically, Sensenbrenner and the get-tough immigration bill he sponsored have turned into bitter rallying cries for an increasingly vocal opposition, especially among Hispanics, fueling protests such as the one that drew more than 10,000 people Thursday in Milwaukee.

About 200 protesters confronted Sensenbrenner at a town meeting Saturday in Waukesha.

To those mobilizing against his bill, the 62-year-old congressman has attained a kind of infamy.

"Chairman Sensenbrenner is becoming a household word in the Latino community," said Cecilia Muñoz of the National Council of La Raza, a leading Hispanic group.

"We want to thank Congressman Sensenbrenner, because he has brought us all together," said Luis Pelayo, a Chicago activist and the president of the Hispanic Council, a small non-profit in Bensenville, Ill. "We have never had a leader so powerful that has united our community like him."

One sign at last week's Milwaukee protest read "Deportemos Sensenbrenner" -- "Let's Deport Sensenbrenner."

A Latino group in Chicago briefly boycotted Miller Brewing Co. because it's a Wisconsin company that gave money to the lawmaker's re-election campaign.

"People who know very little about bills and Congress do know who Congressman Sensenbrenner is. He's become shorthand for the anti-immigrant movement," said Deepak Barghava, a Washington anti-poverty activist fighting the Sensenbrenner bill. "In church basements and town meetings, the name Sensenbrenner gets an incredible reaction."

Denies he's anti-immigration

In an interview last week, Sensenbrenner said the reaction he and his House-approved legislation have inspired "comes as no surprise to me."

"Let me say this shows how tremendously difficult it is do anything to fix our broken immigration system," Sensenbrenner said. "I've never been one that shied away from controversy. What I'm doing is the right thing. We've got to get control of our borders."

He rejects the notion that he is anti-immigration, and his high profile on the issue is a relatively recent thing. In fact, he calls Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, an outspoken Republican crusader against immigration, a "zealot."

But last year, Sensenbrenner got a law enacted that was aimed at barring illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses. And in December, he left his stamp on the broader immigration debate. The powerful committee chairman sponsored and won passage of an immigration bill that would build a long wall on the Mexican border, beef up enforcement against hiring undocumented workers, criminalize illegal presence in the United States and expand the laws against aiding illegal immigrants.

A compromise

Sensenbrenner says his bill is what the public wants and was the only approach that could win approval from a deeply divided GOP majority.

"The Republicans are not like the Rockettes on the issue of immigration," he said.

Focused on security and enforcement, his measure steered clear of the most divisive questions: whether to let in more foreigners as temporary workers and whether to give the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S. a way to earn legal status.

The bill was hailed those who want to restrict immigration, a goal shared many Americans, particularly in the GOP's conservative base. But it has pitted Sensenbrenner against a broad set of political forces: not just Hispanic groups and congressional Democrats, but President Bush, the business lobby, the Roman Catholic Church and others who favor a more liberal immigration policy.

With the Senate debate coming to a head over the next few weeks, opponents of the Sensenbrenner bill are massing against it, with protests and vigils and demonstrations around the country. A rally in Chicago this month drew an estimated 100,000 people and was followed nationwide events, including Saturday in Los Angeles, where more than 100,000 marched. Organizers plan events in Milwaukee and at least nine other cities April 10.

At a news conference here last week, activists opposing the bill called it "ugly,""evil" and "un-American." They said it was punitive and failed to give undocumented workers a path "out of the shadows." They also argued that it would backfire politically on the GOP alienating the nation's growing Hispanic population, a concern shared some Republican strategists.

Talk of repercussions

The refrain from the bill's opponents is that Sensenbrenner has roused a "sleeping giant" in America's immigrant population.

"He is (now) famous as a guy who put forward a bill that criminalizes 11 million people and criminalizes people who are engaged in charity," said Muñoz, of La Raza. "I have worked in Washington for almost 20 years, and that is not the kind of guy the chairman is. But I think he and the Republican leadership are making a very grave mistake with this bill. And that mistake will have repercussions for their priorities for years to come."

"The Sensenbrenner bill has proven to be one of the great mobilizing forces for the pro (immigration) reform alliance in this country," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant's rights organization based in Washington.

"Growers, restaurant owners, nursing home operators, unions, immigrant communities, the Catholic Church are coming out against this bill. . . . This has proven to be a match on a fire," he said.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles has urged priests there to ignore the bill if its provisions against aiding illegal immigrants become law.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) joined in last week, saying Sensenbrenner's bill "would literally criminalize the good Samaritan -- and probably even Jesus himself."

Moral element is argued

Sensenbrenner says his bill is not aimed at criminalizing good Samaritans coming to the aid of undocumented immigrants but at so-called coyotes who smuggle people across the border.

And he defends the idea of making illegal presence a crime. It is now a civil violation.

"The way to come to the United States is to obey the law. And illegal immigrants are violating the law," he said.

Sensenbrenner argues that "the best way to help illegal aliens is to stop illegal immigration," which he says creates an exploited underclass.

"Those who hire large numbers of illegal aliens are the 21st-century slave masters. And in my opinion, that's just as immoral as the 19th-century slave masters we had to fight a civil war to get rid of," said Sensenbrenner, who wants the legal status of workers to be verified before they're hired.

He says cracking down on illegal immigration is a "national security issue."

As for the politics, the Menomonee Falls Republican accused "zealots" on both sides of polarizing the discussion.

"It's much harder as a result of the shrillness of the debate," said Sensenbrenner, who accuses the Mexican government of engaging in a public relations campaign against the bill "that's aimed greatly at me."

One activist on Sensenbrenner's side of the debate, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, said he thought the congressman's critics were making a tactical mistake excoriating him.

"I'm not really sure these protests against him and personalizing him as the locus of evil is going to do the other side any good," Krikorian said. "As far as I can tell, he's not the sort of guy that's going to take very well to that kind of thing."

The Senate Judiciary Committee will attempt to agree on a bill Monday that includes guest workers and could provide a way for illegal immigrants to become legal residents. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has offered a bill much more like Sensenbrenner's.

Anything passed the Senate would become the subject of negotiations with the House, and Sensenbrenner will play a key role in that process. He says one of his bottom lines is no "amnesty" for illegal immigrants. that, Sensenbrenner means that illegal immigrants should have to return to their country of origin before they can be considered for legal residence in the U.S., an idea that his critics say is unworkable.

The lawmaker said last week that he doesn't know if Congress can agree on a new immigration law.

"I have said repeatedly this is the most difficult thing I have done in my public career," Sensenbrenner said.

And one that, one way or another, might shape his political legacy.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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