Senate Joining the Fray Over Immigration

After massive nationwide street protests this weekend, the Senate is set to begin debate, for the first time in a decade, on the emotionally charged subject of immigration.

The Senate’s deliberations, scheduled to start Tuesday and extend over the next two weeks, could reshape a national immigration system that is widely perceived as failing the foreigners who want to enter the United States, citizens who expect it to prevent illegal border crossings and employers who look to it for workers to fill jobs that many Americans refuse to do.

The senators will determine whether flaws in that system should be addressed solely with tough new criminal laws and stringent enforcement measures -- such as those found in a bill, passed by the House late last year, that triggered demonstrations Saturday from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Or they may choose to include programs that give employers access to a future flow of workers, as President Bush has urged, and allow illegal immigrants to gain legal status.

Their choices will provide a barometer of Bush’s waning influence over a Republican Party increasingly on edge about midterm elections. Their debate is likely to not only color the meeting between Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox, in Cancun, Mexico, later this week, but also to lay bare the fractures that the issue creates within the GOP on social, economic and security grounds.

The issue pits two of the party’s core constituencies against each other, with social conservatives insisting on tough enforcement and the need to protect American culture and the business lobby calling for a reliable source of labor.

Even as immigration has divided the GOP, it has also allowed several of the party’s 2008 presidential hopefuls to position themselves for campaigning in the months to come.

Whatever legislation emerges from the Senate would have to be reconciled with the House bill before it could reach the president’s desk to become law, but the divisions are so deep that many wonder whether immigration reform will get that far.

“The challenge isn’t so much what happens in the Senate, it’s in that conference committee with the House,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), co-sponsor of a leading bill with Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), said in an interview Sunday.

“The risk that’s out there is that the Senate’s version is so vastly different than what the House will accept, or they feel we’re not serious about security issues, that it won’t get to the president’s desk,” Cornyn said.

“Or, in what would be a worst case for employers, we have enhanced border security and employer verification, but no way for them to get workers.”

The Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration matters, is working under a March 27 deadline imposed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). Though it looked close to a compromise 10 days ago, the committee goes into its final meeting today struggling to bridge a core breach over whether illegal immigrants should be able to earn citizenship.

“I think we’re going to run out of time,” said Cornyn, who sits on the committee.

The committee’s chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), predicted Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the committee would complete its task. “We’re going to get the bill out tomorrow,” he said. “We may have to work very, very late into the night, but we will.”

Specter backs comprehensive legislation that includes enforcement measures, a guest-worker plan and a provision allowing the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already here to remain legally.

But if no consensus is reached on the Judiciary Committee proposal, the Senate will instead debate an enforcement-only bill introduced by Frist.

Senators who back a guest-worker plan or legal status for illegal immigrants will have to bring those measures to the Senate floor as amendments to Frist’s bill, a process that will be considerably more chaotic and argumentative than committee debate.

Frist, who is seen as a likely White House contender in 2008, assembled a get-tough bill that includes both a border fence and provisions that make being in the United States illegally -- or knowingly providing services or assistance to undocumented immigrants -- a felony.

But it ignores Bush’s call for a guest-worker program. As a result, Frist would have to contend with a threat from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to block any legislation that does not include such a plan.

Because many Republicans and Democrats are under pressure from business interests that want access to labor, particularly in the agriculture, service and construction industries, it might be hard for Frist to garner the 60 votes he would need to prevent a filibuster of his bill.

Perhaps aware of that, he said earlier this month that he expected a guest-worker program to be part of the Senate’s final legislation, but he emphasized that he was against an amnesty provision.

Another senator with presidential ambitions, John McCain (R-Ariz.), co-authored a bill with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that is backed by business, church and immigrant groups and provides guest-workers and illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

That issue of citizenship will be a lightning rod in Senate debate. Cornyn and Kyl are among those who balk at any proposal for amnesty. Their bill includes a guest-worker program without a path to legalization and requires those here illegally to leave the U.S. within five years. Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has introduced a bill that would make it easier to agricultural workers to stay in the country.

Bush, who has shifted his rhetoric to embrace the concerns of law-and-order Republicans, ruled out citizenship for guest workers in his Saturday radio address, saying that “amnesty would be unfair” and “would encourage waves of illegal immigration.”

He will speak on immigration again today at a naturalization ceremony for new citizens, as the Judiciary Committee meets in a final attempt to find middle ground and the Senate prepares to begin debate.

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Behind the debate

The House has already passed legislation aimed largely at securing the nation’s borders. But in the Senate, many Democrats and some Republicans believe that a border crackdown should be paired with a mechanism that would allow more foreigners to enter the country legally to work.

Schedule

Today the Senate Judiciary Committee is to begin its final day of talks on legislation that it will bring to the full Senate. On Tuesday, the full Senate is expected to begin debate.

Issues

* Guest workers: Some senators, as well as President Bush, say efforts to stop workers from crossing the border illegally will not succeed unless the nation creates a legal way for a workers to enter the country. Opponents say a guest-worker plan would only draw more illegal workers here.

* Amnesty: Some senators are adamantly opposed to any program that would give legal status to workers who are here illegally, calling that a form of amnesty for lawbreakers. Others insist the nation should bring undocumented workers out of the shadows, using the legal status as an incentive.

* Criminalization: Both the Senate Judiciary Committee bill and a measure from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) would make being an illegal immigrant a criminal offense. Democratic senators have tried unsuccessfully to have that measure removed from the Judiciary Committee bill. If the debate moves to the Senate, it is likely to become emotional.

Players

* President Bush: He has spent years pushing Congress to adopt a guest-worker plan, a top priority for businesses that rely on immigrant labor. At the end of this week he meets with Mexican President Vicente Fox. Immigration is likely to be a tense subject.

* Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.): He is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose immigration bill may form the basis for Senate debate. He backs a guest-worker program and a plan to allow many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S. to stay, though without gaining citizenship.

* Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.): The Senate majority leader has proposed his legislation that focuses on border security and does not include a guest-worker plan. Frist’s measure was seen by some as an effort to distinguish himself from a potential rival for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who backs a guest-worker program.

* Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.): He wrote a bill with McCain including a guest-worker program that leads to legal status, as well as a program offering illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

* Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas): With Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), he has written legislation that has tough enforcement measures along with a guest-worker program. It requires illegal immigrants to leave the country within five years.

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Source: Times staff writer Nicole Gaouette