Congress moves on illegal-immigration bills about voter ID, fences

WASHINGTON — The House and the Senate moved Wednesday toward a piecemeal crackdown on illegal immigration, pushing forward separate bills to require photo identification to vote, build fences on the U.S.-Mexico border and speed the deportation of undocumented workers. The measures would take the place of President Bush's far broader rewrite of the nation's immigration laws.

Voting almost completely along party lines, the House voted 228-196 for a bill that would require all who register to vote in federal elections to show photo identification that proves they are U.S. citizens. The Senate is not expected to consider the bill this session but voted 94-0 to take up a House-passed measure to build 698 miles of double-layered fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border, with a final vote to come as early as Monday.

The House today will take up bills to speed the deportation of illegal workers, increase penalties for immigrant gang members and human smugglers, end an exemption for Salvadoran illegal immigrants from rapid deportation, criminalize tunneling under the border and overtly deputize state and local police officers to enforce federal laws.

In an interview on CNN, Bush said he would sign the measures, even though they do not embrace his more comprehensive approach, which would include a guest-worker program.

"I would view this as an interim step," he said. "I don't view this as a final product."

Immigration has divided the Republican-controlled Congress and spawned huge demonstrations. Republican leaders believe that the hardening of legislative lines on illegal immigration and border security will bolster the party in November's midterm elections.

"Border security is national security," said House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif. "We're going to try our doggonest to enact as many of these bills as we can."

In reference to the fence bill, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said: "What we are doing here today is about November."

In often-fiery debate on the voting bill, Democrats argued there is no data to show that illegal immigrants vote. Republicans countered that the voting measure was necessary.

"We have 12 million illegal aliens in this country. Many of them, we believe, have been voting illegally," said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. "Every illegal vote takes away the right of one American's vote."

With little more than a week left before the Sept. 29 start of Congress' scheduled recess, GOP leaders were considering appending some or all of the bills to must-pass spending measures. But Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., appeared to close off that avenue Wednesday night, saying he will not add legislative language onto the spending bills that could slow their progress.

The sudden rush of activity startled immigrant and civil-rights groups, which largely had thought a legislative response on immigration was dead for the year. The National Immigration Law Center sent out an "urgent" notice to allies to prod them into action, noting: "In recent days, there has been a serious deterioration of the position of pro-immigrant forces in Congress."

Meanwhile, members of a private task force reiterated their belief that a comprehensive solution is necessary to solve immigration problems. The task force's plan includes strong border enforcement and a program that allows illegal immigrants now in the country to remain by paying a stiff fine.

But it also proposes the establishment of two federal organizations that would regulate the flow of immigrants and help them assimilate into society. Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who co-chaired the Migration Policy Institute task force with former Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., said the House approach is too draconian, while a Senate bill passed in May is too complex.

Most provisions in the bills the lawmakers are now considering were plucked from the House's border-security and anti-illegal-immigration bill that passed in December, then sparked protests that brought millions of immigrants into the streets last spring. But Republicans believe the politics of the immigration issue have shifted in favor of their get-tough approach. Even some Republicans who have backed Bush's approach, such as Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., said Wednesday that the shift among voters in favor of "enforcement first" is palpable.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., surprised many immigration-rights activists when he took up the House border-fencing bill.

Cecilia Muņoz, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, warned that Republicans "are politically playing with fire" with Latino voters, who gave 40 percent of their vote to Bush in 2004.

The House rhetoric Wednesday was particularly heated.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said he initially was denied a voter ID required under a Missouri state law because he doesn't have a driver's license and couldn't immediately produce a passport or birth certificate. His congressional ID card was not accepted.

A Missouri court this month struck down the state law, and a state superior-court judge in Georgia ruled Tuesday that the state's law requiring a photo ID was an unconstitutional condition for voting.

A stream of African-American and Latino Democrats took to the House floor to denounce the bill as a "modern-day poll tax" designed to disenfranchise minority, elderly and disabled voters who lean Democratic.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the bill "a tawdry attempt by Republicans to suppress the votes of millions of Americans."

Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., a softspoken moderate who helped craft the legislation, angrily called the charges nonsense, saying the bill authorizes funds to assist state and local governments cover the costs of helping the poor obtain identification cards.

Under the bill, all states would be required to check photo identification by the November 2008 elections. By the 2010 elections, states could accept only identification that shows proof of citizenship, a passport or a new federal "Real ID" card authorized by Congress but not yet implemented. The three Republicans in the Washington state delegation voted for the bill; the state's six Democrats opposed it.

The bill coming before the Senate would authorize the construction, on the southern border, of 698 miles of double-layered fencing — at an estimated cost of at least $3 million a mile — and a "virtual fence" of cameras, sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles. That is nearly double the size of the fence approved by the Senate in May as part of its comprehensive immigration bill. The border currently has 83 miles of fences.

Compiled from The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press