Guest Worker Plan in Doubt

Even as President Bush stresses his commitment to reworking the nation’s immigration laws, some key supporters on the issue say it is so politically divisive that they doubt he can achieve his goal, given the administration’s ambitious agenda.

In interviews last week, Bush insisted he would pursue legislation that would legalize some of the estimated 8 million undocumented immigrants in the United States by granting them temporary worker status. Under his plan, illegal immigrants could apply for legal status and, if they qualified, could stay in the country for as long as six years.

Some conservative Republicans have denounced the plan as a form of amnesty, and say it would encourage illegal immigration. But Bush has said he would deal with the problem of illegal immigrants in a humane way. And he has linked the plan to national security.

“It’s a big, important issue because there are millions of people here” illegally, Bush told the Wall Street Journal. “I happen to believe that a reform of the legal system, a guest worker program, for better lack of a word ... will help border security.”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an outspoken advocate of immigration reform, has said that Bush convinced him during a recent meeting that the president was serious about pursuing legislation this session. McCain is working with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Senate’s key Democratic player on the issue, to try to develop bipartisan legislation.

But several immigrant advocacy groups, labor unions and lawmakers who would be involved in such an initiative say the White House has not reached out to them to produce a bill that could overcome opposition among some Republicans and win the necessary support to pass. Some take that as a sign that the administration is going to spotlight other priorities -- including overhauling Social Security and the tax system -- this year.

Bush occasionally promoted his immigration plan during his reelection campaign, but it was not an issue he stressed.

“The president has done this before,” said Michele Waslin, director of immigration policy research for the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Latino civil rights organization. “Last year he made a speech about immigration reform, then we didn’t see anything.... I don’t know why it would be different now.”

Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) was similarly skeptical.

“My guess is that it is an administration whose plate is awfully full at this moment, and I don’t believe that immigration is in the top three or four items,” said Craig, who sponsored a bill last year that would have granted illegal agricultural workers temporary resident status and the prospect of earning citizenship for themselves and their families.

He added: “Congress itself is looking at the reality of what can we effectively get done in the first 18 months that is politically doable.”

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said that although he believed Bush was committed to immigration reform, there was “no question that with the kind of agenda that we’re looking at -- loaded with big issues that are going to require maximum presidential leadership and expenditure of political capital -- it may well be likely that immigration reform gets lost because we can’t do it all.”

Hagel, who planned to reintroduce his own version of immigration reform legislation this year, said the matter was a particularly complex one for the president. “This is a very bloody issue within the Republican Party,” with a vocal minority in the House urging a crackdown on illegal immigration, restriction of legal immigration and opposition to any form of guest worker program, he said.

There also is a reluctance on Capitol Hill to tackle an issue seen as politically volatile in a session where the president is already asking Republicans to grasp the so-called political third rail of Social Security by allowing younger workers to divert some of their Social Security payroll taxes into private accounts.

“I think [Bush] thinks that he can find a way to work some magic to get it through,” said Paul S. Egan, director of government relations for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a nonprofit group that favors restricting immigration. “But I think he’s going to find it next to impossible in the House.”

Egan and some GOP lawmakers say that while Bush is focused on the long-term goal of wooing Latinos to the Republican Party, members of the House are focused on the next election.

“The president is taking on a lot, and he’s going to be asking Republicans to make sacrifices on a lot of different things. And this is one where there is just not a lot of unity in the party,” said one senior GOP aide who asked not to be named. “You’re selling it to congressmen who’ve got to get reelected in two years. They understand the loftiness and worthiness of the goal of a permanent Republican majority, but this is a business that is about survival.”

In remarks to business leaders last week, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. suggested that the administration’s push to revamp the immigration system would not take a backseat to its restructuring plan for Social Security.

“Social Security’s elephant might be sitting at a distant table,” Card said in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a reference to concerns that Social Security could go bankrupt by 2042. “But this elephant [of mass illegal migration to the U.S.] is sitting at the table right in front of us, and we should start to address it right now.”

In an interview published in the Washington Times last week, Bush repeated his determination to take on the immigration issue.

“I believe the president has got to set big agenda items and solve big problems,” Bush said. “Obviously, we’re going to have to work on [immigration reform], just like Social Security. This will require the expenditure of capital.”

The House leadership late last year promised Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, that it would attach controversial law enforcement provisions he supported that target immigrants to the first “must pass” bill of the new session -- such as additional funding of the Iraq war.

Sensenbrenner had fought to include the measures -- which include banning states from issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, tightening asylum criteria and completing a fence between the California-Mexico border -- to a White House-backed bill restructuring the nation’s intelligence apparatus.

In the face of Senate objections, House Republican leaders agreed to strip the measures from the bill after winning a pledge from the White House that it would help push for them in the new Congress.

The measures may be attached by House leaders to an emergency aid bill for Iraq that few lawmakers would be willing to vote against. But the Senate could again block such a move.

That might set the stage for the White House to push a comprehensive bill that would include a guest worker program and law enforcement provisions.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the newly installed chairman of the immigration subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he was convinced Bush would take on the challenge of immigration reform this year.

“I take the president at his word,” Cornyn said. “Congress can deal with more than one issue at a time, and we should.”

Still, Cornyn said, the White House and congressional supporters of immigration reform need to educate lawmakers -- and much of the nation -- on the challenges posed by continued illegal immigration.

“We need to start to develop some consensus on what is doable and what is not,” Cornyn said. “If we only focus on border security, homeland security, we are not doing our job.”

Times staff writer Peter Wallsten contributed to this report.