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Immigration Proposals Include Arizona Fence

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Times Staff Writer

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved proposals to erect double- and triple-layered fencing near Arizona border cities and to sharply boost the number of agents working along the Mexican border as lawmakers worked to overhaul U.S. immigration policy.

While those measures received wide bipartisan support, the panel has yet to deal with contentious issues such as whether to create a guest-worker program, whether to make being in the U.S. illegally a criminal offense and whether some immigration enforcement laws should be applied retroactively.

The House produced immigration legislation in December that concentrated on enforcement, tough penalties for immigration infractions and new security measures.

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Thursday’s hearing indicated that the Senate was thinking along the same lines. But in a reflection of the debate’s complexity, after the hearing senators were unable to agree on how many Border Patrol agents they had decided to add every year or for how many years the increases would continue.

Judiciary Committee staffers said the lawmakers were awaiting transcripts of Thursday’s meeting to see what had been settled.

“The general agreement is that there was an increase in agents, over 10,000,” said committee spokesman Blain Rethmeier. The Border Patrol currently has more than 11,000 agents.

Facing a March 27 deadline set by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), the committee has to resolve those questions and others as it works through a 305-page bill that covers border, interior and workplace enforcement; visa reform; a guest-worker program and the status of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.

After failing to vote on any proposals Wednesday for lack of a quorum, the committee passed a dozen amendments Thursday -- its third session to consider the legislation.

Senators approved a measure by Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) that would prohibit municipalities from requiring companies to set up day-labor sites as a condition of conducting or expanding their businesses.

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Sessions said municipalities should not ask businesses to “set aside private property and spend private capital abetting illegal activity.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) backed the measure, saying that she was concerned about liability issues in operating such centers. “I don’t know where liability lies,” Feinstein said, calling a mandated requirement for such centers “a dangerous practice. At the very least, it bends the law and possibly breaks it.”

The lone dissenting vote on that proposal came from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who argued that day-labor centers helped communities concentrate workers in one place and that it was not the federal government’s business to dictate local matters. “Why can’t local communities make the decisions?” he asked.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) sponsored the measure for layered fencing running along the border near the cities of Douglas, Nogales, Lukeville and Naco and extending 25 miles beyond Naco into the desert. It passed with one dissenting vote.

In extensive debate over the fence on Wednesday, Kyl had defended his proposal against charges that such barriers were outmoded. He said it would involve at least 150 miles of vehicle barriers and all-weather roads. “This old 19th century technology does a nice job when you put it in 20th century materials,” he said.

When Feinstein challenged him to prove that the new fencing would not increase the number of immigrants trying to cross into California, Kyl told her he could not assure her of that.

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But he did remind Feinstein -- who ended up supporting the proposal -- that he helped write the legislation for a fence along the border in San Diego. Construction of that double barrier was credited with sharply reducing the number of illegal border crossers into San Diego County -- and driving them eastward into Arizona.

“Arizona is still apprehending over half of all illegal aliens,” Kyl said.

Another measure, sponsored by Kennedy -- to study the effectiveness of additional fencing on border cities and the impact that might have on relations with the Mexican government and the environment -- passed with one dissenting vote, from Sessions. The Alabama senator -- whose proposal for a 700-mile wall in the most heavily trafficked border areas had failed -- made clear during discussions Wednesday that he disapproved of commissioning a study instead of simply acting.

“The American people have a right to be dubious of what we do here,” he said.

Other amendments approved Thursday included Feinstein’s measure to exempt asylum-seekers from being prosecuted for forged documents if they could prove a credible fear of persecution in their home country, and a measure by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) that would order the deportation of illegal immigrants being held in federal and state prisons.

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