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Senate Moves Toward Passage of Sweeping Immigration Legislation

Posted on: Wednesday, 24 May 2006, 06:00 CDT

WASHINGTON _ A fragile bipartisan Senate coalition beat back major challenges to a comprehensive immigration bill Tuesday as supporters began looking toward a confrontational showdown with the House of Representatives.

Senate passage, which is expected on Thursday, will send the volatile debate over immigration into a House-Senate negotiating committee charged with finding middle ground despite what many say are irreconcilable differences between the two chambers' approaches.

The Senate bill contains what many House Republicans consider deal-breaker provisions that would create a guest-worker program and grant legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. To soften objections from conservatives, the Senate added some tougher law-enforcement provisions, including building 370 miles of fences along the border.

House Republican leaders continue to support a border-enforcement-only bill that the House passed in December. They apparently gave little ground during a White House meeting Tuesday with President Bush, who's urging Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform that generally embraces the key components of the Senate bill.

"I think the basic difference of opinion that we have seen on this issue between the House and Senate and the White House is real, it is honest, and it was exhibited at this meeting," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., has said that he'll stand by his policy that no compromise bill will be brought before the House for a vote that doesn't have support from a majority of the 231 Republicans, who control the 435-member chamber.

"If Speaker Hastert insists on this majority of the majority, it's dead, unless the president of the United States can be very persuasive with the House of Representatives," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.

But the Senate Republican leadership gave their chamber's measure an emphatic push and vowed to keep up the pressure when a House-Senate conference committee convenes.

"We're not going through this exercise just to have something die in conference," said Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. He called the immigration bill "important legislation" that must pass this year.

Leaders of the bipartisan Senate coalition remained in firm control midway into the second week of debate on the measure, leaving opponents resigned to its passage after the Senate overwhelmingly defeated an amendment that would have broadened the legalization requirements.

The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and backed by the Senate Democratic leadership, sought to eliminate the bill's categories for who would be offered eventual citizenship.

An estimated 6.7 million illegal immigrants have been here five years or longer. Under the bill, they could stay here and get on track for citizenship if they paid a fine, learned English and held jobs.

But another 2.8 million who have been here for two-to-five years would be required to exit the country briefly under a so-called "touch-back provision" before they could return as participants in the guest-worker program.

Those who entered the country less two years ago, estimated at 1.6 million, would be required to return to their home countries.

Feinstein said the three-tiered process, which emerged as part of the compromise bill co-sponsored by Sens. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, would force a total of 4.4 million people to leave the country, disrupting jobs and families, and would lead to further illegal immigration.

Her amendment, rejected 61-37, would have let undocumented immigrants, including those who entered the country as recently as Jan. 1, apply for "orange cards" to eventually gain legal status.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was sympathetic to the concept but warned that passage would "fracture the very tenuous, delicate coalition" needed for passage.

As in the House, the issue has sharply divided Republicans, with prominent GOP senators playing lead roles on both sides of the issue.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is an architect of the comprehensive measure, while his home state colleague, Sen. John Kyl, has led efforts to curb its terms. Kyl and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, led GOP opponents, while McCain has support from Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Democrats have been united largely in support of the measure, but some of the sharpest attacks on the proposed guest worker plan came from Democrats pushing union-backed amendments to ease the impact on U.S. workers.

Perhaps the most substantial dent in the measure was a successful amendment co-sponsored by Feinstein and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., that lowered the number of immigrants admissible under the guest worker program from 325,000 to 200,000.

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(Knight Ridder correspondent James Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.)

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(c) 2006, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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Source: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau

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