Sweeping immigration changes get backing from Senate panel

WASHINGTON — A key Senate panel broke with the House's get-tough approach to illegal immigration Monday and sent to the floor a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration laws that would provide lawful employment to millions of illegal aliens while offering work visas to hundreds of thousands of new immigrants every year.

With bipartisan support, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-6 to side with President Bush's general approach to an immigration issue that is dividing the country, fracturing the Republican Party and ripening into one of the biggest debates of this election year.

Conservatives have loudly demanded that the government tighten control of its borders and begin deporting illegal immigrants. But in recent weeks, the immigrant community has risen up in protest, marching by the hundreds of thousands to denounce measures under consideration.

An estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants would be able to get legal status and eventual citizenship without leaving the United States first, and hundreds of thousands of foreigners could come for jobs every year under the bill that advanced Monday.

The full Senate will debate immigration and border security for much of the next two weeks, and the committee was scrambling to meet a midnight deadline set by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., who has warned he would offer a stricter proposal.

Frist refused to say if he supported the compromise hammered out Monday by Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. Supporters said they expect the committee's version to change during debate, but reconciling it with the House legislation will be a challenge.

The House legislation would make illegal presence in the U.S. a felony and could leave humanitarian-aid groups vulnerable to prosecution for alien smuggling. That bill has drawn the most anger at emotional protests around the country over the past week. Civil-rights groups, business organizations and labor unions oppose it, too.

"You have to do all the things that we would want people to do to stay here and be productive, so I don't think this is even remotely like amnesty," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of four Judiciary Committee Republicans who joined all eight Democrats on the panel in supporting the bill approved Monday.

But opponents said the bill would reward undocumented immigrants for coming to the U.S. illegally.

"Get ready for a real tough time a few years from now when American workers come to your office and say, 'How did you let this happen?' " said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

Bush favors a comprehensive approach, which he says must include some program to answer businesses' need for immigrant labor.

Under the Judiciary Committee bill, undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. would be able to get green cards after six years by registering with the government, passing a background check, paying back taxes and $2,000 in fines and learning English.

Hundreds of thousands of foreign workers could come to the United States to work legally every year on visas that would be good for three years and could be renewed once. The exact number of workers eligible would vary based on labor-market conditions, but the guest workers could apply for green cards after they had worked here four years.

Employers such as Microsoft mogul Bill Gates are urging Congress to back the president's program. High-tech companies say they need more talent, and the federal government agrees. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor certified a need for more than 600,000 guest-worker visas for high-tech workers, but under current law only about one-tenth could enter.

The judiciary committee's bill also creates:

• 12,000 new border-patrol positions during the next five years, bringing the total force to 23,000.

• A guest-worker program for 400,000 guest workers currently living outside the country, a program pushed by the Bush administration.

• A pilot program proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to allow 1.5 million undocumented agricultural immigrants to obtain five-year temporary visas.

• New penalties for building tunnels under the border.

Outside the Capitol, hundreds of immigrants protested the harsher House approach, echoing sentiments voiced angrily at the rallies that have drawn thousands in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and other cities.

Compiled from The Washington Post, Gannett News Service, Newsday and Knight Ridder Newspapers reports.