Senate coalition beats back effort to cut provisions on immigration

By Jonathan Weisman and Jim VandeHei

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — A fragile Senate coalition backing a broad restructuring of the nation's immigration laws survived its first legislative test Tuesday, beating back efforts to gut provisions that would grant millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and hundreds of thousands of foreigners a new guest-worker visa.

But President Bush's efforts to win over House conservatives to his immigration proposals still faced an uphill climb. A day after a prime-time televised address to the nation, Bush continued to make his case Tuesday that immigration legislation must be comprehensive — tightening control of the borders, offering guest-worker visas and offering most illegal immigrants a path to lawful employment and citizenship.

"In order for us to solve the problem of an immigration system that's not working, it's really important for Congress to understand ... that the elements I described all go hand in hand," Bush said during a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

But House Republicans, who passed legislation last year to crack down on illegal immigration without offering new avenues to legal employment, were not budging.

Immigration bills

A comparison of House and Senate immigration bills

Senate bill now under consideration:

• Allows illegal immigrants in the country five years or more to remain, continue working and eventually become legal residents after paying fines and back taxes and learning English.

• Requires illegal immigrants in U.S. between two and five years to go to point of entry at border and file application to return.

• Requires those in country less than two years to leave.

• Creates guest-worker program for estimated 1.5 million immigrant farmworkers, who also could earn legal permanent residency.

• Provides up to 200,000 temporary visas a year for future workers.

• Adds up to 14,000 Border Patrol agents by 2011 to current force of 11,300 agents.

• Authorizes additional detention facilities for apprehended illegal immigrants.

• Requires employers and subcontractors to use electronic system to verify new hires are legal within 18 months and increases penalties up to $20,000 per illegal worker and jail time for repeat offenders.

House bill passed in December:

• No provisions providing path to legal residency or citizenship for illegal immigrants. No new temporary guest-worker program.

• Makes illegal presence in country a felony; increases penalties for first-time illegal entry to U.S.

• Makes it a felony to assist, encourage, direct or induce a person to enter or attempt to enter or remain in United States illegally.

• Beginning in six years, all employers would have to use database to verify Social Security numbers of all employees.

• Increases maximum fines for employers of illegal workers from current $10,000 to $40,000 per violation and establishes prison sentences of up to 30 years for repeat offenders.

• Requires mandatory detention for all non-Mexican illegal immigrants arrested at ports of entry or at land and sea borders.

• Establishes mandatory sentences for smuggling illegal immigrants and for re-entering the U.S. illegally after deportation.

• Makes drunken-driving conviction a deportable offense.

• Requires building two-layer fences along 700 miles of 2,000-mile border between Mexico and U.S.

The Associated Press

"I understand what the president's position is. I have made it pretty clear that I have supported the House position," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The legislative action in the Senate, coupled with the response to Bush's speech in the House, underscored how difficult it will be for Congress to produce a compromise that can reach the president's desk.

In the Senate, the bipartisan coalition appears to be holding behind broad-based legislation that would tighten border controls, create a guest-worker program and offer illegal immigrants who have been in the country at least five years a legal work permit and a path to citizenship.

Senators voted 55-40 to kill an amendment, offered by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., that would have prohibited the implementation of any guest-worker program for illegal immigrants until the homeland-security secretary certified that the bill's border-security provisions were fully funded and operational.

A few hours later, senators voted 69-28 to kill an amendment by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that would have eliminated the central plank of Bush's immigration policy, a program to offer temporary guest-worker visas to 325,000 foreign workers a year. Dorgan and some labor-union leaders said the program would "in-source" a steady flow of cheap labor that would compete for low-skilled jobs and depress wages for everyone.

The Senate did overwhelmingly back an amendment by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., that capped the number of guest-worker visas at 200,000, rather than the original version that would offer 325,000 visas a year, plus up to 20 percent more each year when that total was reached.

Senators both for and against the immigration bill said they thought the bill would be passed by the end of next week. But the Senate's progress appeared only to entrench Republican opposition in the House. Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., pronounced Bush's speech "unconvincing." Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., pronounced himself "annoyed." And Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., declared that Bush had "insulted a lot of people" and "made the situation worse."

At least 73 House Republicans have signed a letter saying they will never accept any plan that offers legal work and citizenship to illegal immigrants.

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