Border Security Funds Sought

Senate Republicans introduced a $2-billion security measure Tuesday to add extra agents, surveillance equipment and detention facilities along the U.S.-Mexico border -- raising fears that the move may undercut efforts to reach broader immigration reform.

The new Senate bill came as House leaders reiterated their opposition to a Senate proposal to create a guest-worker program and legalize many illegal immigrants. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) indicated he too disagreed with the legalization elements of the Senate proposal, which he helped broker.

But that compromise measure, which also includes enforcement provisions, received a boost Tuesday from President Bush as he summoned a bipartisan group of senators to the White House and encouraged them to pass a bill by Memorial Day.

The $2 billion for enforcement measures is being added to a must-pass supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

Though it may convince conservatives that tougher security can coexist with a guest-worker program, Democrats warned that the additional spending should not be a replacement for a broader overhaul.

“Whatever we do on the supplemental dealing with border security will make our job less difficult ... as it relates to the guest-worker provision,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

“I think if the majority tries to get out of [broader changes] by passing border security only ... it would be not only a bad decision substantively, but it would be a terrible decision politically,” Reid said.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), a cosponsor of the border spending provision, said it was not meant to replace broader reform. “This is just one part of the attempt to do border security,” he said.

With lawmakers deeply divided, senators have urged Bush to take a clearer public stand in favor of the compromise to sway conservative Republicans.

“We could use some help now,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

After meeting with the senators, Bush offered support for the Senate proposal in the same general terms he had used Monday in Orange County.

“There is a common desire to have a bill that enforces the border

Despite Bush’s lack of specifics, Tuesday’s meeting seemed to energize the lawmakers present. The Senate is expected to resume debate on immigration, possibly by May 8, after negotiations foundered in early April over procedural issues. Reid said he and Frist would work to resolve those disagreements.

Specter also was upbeat. “While the president did not endorse the Senate committee bill that came out of Judiciary, there’s no doubt that when he talks about a comprehensive bill ... he’s talking about the ingredients of the Senate bill,” Specter said. “And after this meeting, I’m confident we’ll get it done.”

Most of the senators who met with Bush back the comprehensive approach. But in a sign of the deep divide within the GOP, conservatives were notably absent. Though Bush supports reform that includes a temporary-worker program, the House last year passed enforcement-only legislation that did not address guest workers or the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

The Senate compromise divides illegal immigrants into two basic groups, giving those who arrived before January 2004 a way to work toward citizenship, and requiring those who arrived after that date to leave. But even within the Senate, there is disagreement over whether illegal immigrants should be allowed citizenship at all.

With the intense public scrutiny surrounding immigration, senators are uneasy about voting on politically risky legislation only to see it radically changed during attempts to align the Senate legislation with the House bill, Specter said.

Those worries took on added weight with comments Tuesday by House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). “This idea that was being kicked around the Senate about providing some sort of amnesty for those who have been here five years or more -- I just think it was a very big mistake,” he said. “You are just inviting more people to come. Until you strengthen the borders and begin to enforce the laws, we’re not making any progress.”

Those remarks came a day after Frist, a cosponsor of the border spending measure and a key figure in structuring the Senate compromise bill, said that he felt the bill’s legalization provisions went too far. “What has happened now in terms of the amnesty provision -- and I’m against amnesty -- is we have a good compromise bill on the floor that, to my mind, goes too far in terms of amnesty itself,” Frist told CNN.

But one leading GOP conservative, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, says in a report to be released today that he supports granting visas to illegal immigrants now working in the U.S., and in some cases offering them a path to citizenship.

According to an advance copy of his paper, Gingrich said that in addition to enhancing border controls and stiffening sanctions on those who employ people here illegally, “we must have a humanitarian period of transition as we replace an illegal pattern of immigration with a legal one.”

But unlike the Senate compromise, Gingrich’s proposal would make all workers return to their home countries before applying for work visas. “Anything less than requiring people who are working here illegally to return home to apply for a worker visa is amnesty,” he said.