Bush Hopeful on Immigration Bill, but Senate Remains Torn

President Bush said Thursday that he was confident the Senate would approve an overhaul of immigration laws, but lawmakers plodded through a second day of debate with the significant distance between two opposing camps seemingly as wide as ever.

Bush’s comments came after he held a long-scheduled meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox in the Yucatan Peninsula resort of Cancun. At the end of a one-hour conference, Bush spoke optimistically about the legislation’s prospects, assuring Fox that he was “committed to having a comprehensive immigration bill on my desk.”

In Washington, senators worked behind the scenes to sway each other. At one point, they displayed rare unanimity on immigration law, voting 94 to 0 to approve a study on deaths of undocumented immigrants at the border.

The vote, on an amendment from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), was the first of a series that would push the Senate in the next week to consider a guest-worker program and plans that would give permanent legal status to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now here.

In a heated demonstration of the GOP’s rifts over immigration, conservative House members held a news conference to denounce any lawmaker who supported citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Legislation approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee would create a path for illegal immigrants to gain permanent legal status or citizenship. Critics say that would provide amnesty to those who had broken U.S. law.

“Anybody that votes for an amnesty bill deserves to be branded with a scarlet letter A,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), referring to the Senate Judiciary Committee legislation, which also would toughen enforcement of immigration laws and create two programs allowing additional foreigners to enter the country as temporary workers.

That legislation is one of two major proposals before the Senate. The other is a bill offered by Frist that concentrates only on border security and enforcement of immigration laws.

The competing visions reflect attitudes among Americans, according to a poll by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center. Like lawmakers, Americans are increasingly concerned about illegal immigration, with 52% seeing such immigrants as a burden to the country. And, like lawmakers, Americans are divided on how to deal with the issue.

Thirty-two percent believe illegal immigrants should be able to stay permanently, the poll found. Another 32% think they should be able to temporarily stay as guest workers before being required to return to their home countries. And 27% believe undocumented immigrants should be sent home.

In a display of bipartisanship, 10 senators held a news conference to affirm their support for the Judiciary Committee bill. The senators, declaring that momentum was on their side, painted the choice between their bill and Frist’s enforcement-only legislation as a turning point for the country.

“This legislation is a defining moment in the history of the United States,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who asked whether the country would continue its tradition of welcoming newcomers or would shut its doors. “Of course [immigration] has to be legal, but, by God, we have to continue that tradition.”

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, complained that a campaign was afoot to smear his committee’s bill by saying it offered amnesty. He vowed to “take the Senate leader head on” over Frist’s use of the word.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) added: “This is a very, very important piece of legislation. I resent it when it’s called amnesty.”

While the Senate was debating, Bush was meeting in Mexico with Fox.

“We don’t want people sneaking into our country that are going to do jobs Americans won’t do,” the president said, in support of his call for a guest-worker plan.

“We want them coming in, in an orderly way, which will take pressure off of both our borders.”

At the same time, Bush told Fox that those in the U.S. illegally should not be given preference over people abroad who applied for citizenship.

For Fox, who is completing a six-year term and is not allowed to seek reelection, the meeting brought the immigration debate full circle: He took office seeking to improve relations with the United States, particularly over immigration. But that relationship was disrupted by the United States’ attention to its campaign against terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks, and then by differences between Fox and Bush over the Iraq war, which Fox opposed.

Fox, offering the sort of support Bush has sought on immigration, said Mexico understood that immigration “is a shared responsibility.”

Gaouette reported from Washington and Gerstenzang from Cancun.