Will vote change border policy?

Immigrants — legal and illegal — and their advocates throughout the Northwest and across the country are looking to a newly elected Congress with renewed hope.

They see potential for the kinds of changes a Republican-controlled Congress did not deliver this year: a guest-worker program that could bring thousands of new immigrant workers into the country, a speedier process for reuniting families separated because of immigration rules, and amnesty for the estimated 12 million immigrants living in the country illegally.

"Democrats have favored a more comprehensive approach to reform which balances both what they call earned legalization [amnesty], and some kind of guest-worker program ... with more and increased border security," said Michael C. LeMay, professor emeritus at California State University, San Bernardino, and an author of five books on immigration.

Democratic control of Congress, he said, "will make it a bit more likely that immigration legislation will be passed early in 2007."

But it may not be easy.

Among remaining Republican members of Congress are some staunchly opposed to easing immigration laws. Even among Democrats, there's division on the immigration issue.

In September, for example, two Democratic congressmen from Washington — Brian Baird and Adam Smith — voted with the Republican majority in the House to authorize construction of a security fence along the Mexican border.

In Seattle, Pramila Jayapal, executive director of Hate Free Zone Washington, a group that advocates against discrimination, said it's clear some Democrats have been worried about backlash as immigration opponents have grown more vocal.

At a news conference last week, she said polling data show King County voters support fair treatment for all immigrants.

"That kind of data should help Democrats see that they can take a courageous stand and not be abandoned by voters," she said.

Political analysts predict some soul-searching among the Democratic leadership, who might be concerned that certain efforts, like a guest-worker program, might erode some of their labor support and make them appear too closely aligned with President Bush, who supports such a program.

They predict, too, that voter initiatives will increasingly be used at the state and local levels — where the financial burden of illegal immigration is felt most — in an attempt to rein in and regulate immigration in ways the federal government hasn't done.

Jack Martin, of the Washington, D.C.,-based Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which endorses immigration-law enforcement, says Tuesday's election results are testament to the Republicans' failure to clamp down on illegal immigration.

The onus is now on Democrats, he said. "We are going to have a new Congress that has been forced by public pressure to discuss and think about immigration issues as no previous Congress has had to do."

Immigration became a divisive topic throughout the country this year.

In the election, both sides used the immigration issue as a bullwhip to attack past actions of their opponents.

In the end, immigration appeared to have played little role overall in Tuesday's election — particularly in states like Washington, which had no immigration-related issues on the ballot.

In an absentee-voter survey and an Election Day exit poll conducted by Hate Free Zone and the University of Washington, voters in King County reflected the sentiments of those across the country who cited the war in Iraq, taxes and the economy as issues important to them.

"It's very clear the Republicans and folks who are against immigration reform have been trying to make it into a polarizing issue," said Jayapal, of Hate Free Zone. "It's equally clear that nobody's buying."

Times staff reporter Alicia Mundy contributed to this report. Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com