WASHINGTON (By Mike Madden, Arizona
Republic) March 17, 2006 —
A Senate committee worked out
a deal Thursday on immigration reform and border security that most
lawmakers probably can support, but passing a bill into law still will
be tough before the November midterm elections.
After slogging through five meetings over the past two weeks without
much progress, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee said they had a
basic agreement on what have been the most contentious issues in the
immigration debate: allowing the estimated 12million undocumented
immigrants already living in the United States to earn permanent legal
status and, eventually, citizenship and allowing foreigners to come here
to work legally in the future.
With concern over illegal immigration mounting nationwide, Republican
leaders ordered the committee to act fast, hoping to show voters that
the GOP-controlled Congress is taking the matter seriously. Recent
polling indicates that voters consider immigration a serious problem,
which could sway their decisions about candidates at the ballot box.
But heavy pressure from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., led
the committee to a bipartisan deal that would combine earned legal
status and a guest-worker plan with increased border security and
enforcement of laws barring employers from hiring undocumented
immigrants. That is a mix that lobbyists and Senate staffers said could
be enough for a bill to pass the Senate, even if Frist and other GOP
leaders decide to oppose it.
President Bush has said he wants an immigration-reform bill that
includes a guest-worker provision.
Frist, a potential presidential contender in 2008, said he will move his
own legislation directly to the full Senate if the committee doesn't
finish its work. His bill would include only the border security and
enforcements provisions.
Tough deadline
"If these
compromises (by the committee) come through, there's going to be a lot
of buy-in," said Angelo Amador, director of immigration policy for the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an influential Republican ally that is pushing
hard for immigration reform.
Staffers must finish negotiations while Congress is in recess next week,
and the committee must vote when members return on March 27, the
deadline Frist set for them to finish.
Between now and then, lawmakers must settle a turf battle with
the Finance Committee over worksite enforcement provisions. And even if
the Senate passes a reform bill, it won't become law unless the House,
which passed a tough border bill late last year, agrees to it and Bush
signs it.
Still, immigrant rights advocates were thrilled and surprised by the
committee's agreement. Aides to lawmakers still were hammering out terms
of the deal until a few hours before dawn Thursday. Activists said the
deal will bolster their case when the entire Senate debates immigration
later this month by giving it the committee's stamp of approval.
"There was real progress today, enormous progress today," said Cecilia
Muñoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, the
largest national Latino civil rights group. "We knew from the beginning
that you need a bipartisan proposal in order to pass the Senate. That
appears to be what the Judiciary Committee is proposing."
Anti-immigration organizations were outraged.
"The American people still have the God-given right to defend the
integrity of the territory, their sovereignty and their national
security, and they will do so if the federal government fails in its
constitutional duty," said Chris Simcox, president of the Minuteman
Civil Defense Corps, an Arizona-based group that patrols both borders
for undocumented immigrants.
Deal details
The plan would let undocumented immigrants already living in the United
States obtain green cards if they paid $2,000 in fines, passed
background checks, paid back taxes for wages they'd already earned and
learned English.
Those provisions come from legislation by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., that immigration advocacy groups, business
organizations and some labor unions backed.
The compromise reached Thursday between Kennedy and Sen. Arlen Specter,
R-Pa., Judiciary Committee chairman, specifies that no undocumented
immigrants can get green cards until after the existing backlog of about
3 million visas for workers and family members of citizens and permanent
residents is cleared up.
That could take six or seven years, according to State Department
estimates.
Another compromise, between Kennedy and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, would
allow about 400,000 foreign workers to come to the United States legally
every year. They could stay for two years before returning to their home
countries but then could apply to return for a six-year extension.
That guest-worker deal combines parts of both the McCain-Kennedy plan
and another plan by Cornyn and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
The negotiations could bolster McCain's status as a leader on
immigration reform, an issue he has been touring the country talking
about as he weighs a 2008 presidential bid.
By allowing undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States
without first returning home, the Judiciary Committee would be rejecting
Kyl's approach, even as he makes immigration a focus of his re-election
campaign this year.
Critics unhappy
Opponents of the committee's deal say it essentially allows undocumented
immigrants to get permanent residence ahead of foreigners who have
applied for visas and waited in their home countries for the paperwork
to come through. Kyl said the McCain-Kennedy approach would be
criticized as amnesty by immigration hard-liners.
"What we're doing is saying people who came here illegally will get all
the same benefits of a green card while they're waiting to get the green
card granted to them," Kyl said.
Kennedy disputed that.
"In most situations here in America, we admire those characteristics:
people that are ready to risk their lives in order to come here, in
order to work to look after their families," he said.
"There is no moving to the front of the line. There's no free ticket.
This is not amnesty."
In an interview after the committee meeting, Kyl predicted a close
committee vote after the recess.
"I don't think there's a consensus. I think the vote will be, like, 9-9
or 10-8," he said. "I'd say that's a fairly divided committee."
A simple majority is needed to approve the deal and move a bill to
the entire Senate for a vote.
But the deal's supporters said they were confident they had the votes to
prevail. Meanwhile, McCain said more work is ahead.
"They're making significant progress, and I'm pleased about it, but
they're not there yet," he said.
