Senator Presses Immigration Issue

Tensions over immigration policy erupted on the Senate floor Wednesday when, in the midst of considering an emergency spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, a Republican senator put forward a plan to offer an estimated half a million farmworkers in this country illegally the chance to legalize their status.

Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) threatened to move forward with a proposal he has championed for two years, despite opposition from the Senate Republican leadership.

Known as AgJobs, Craig’s plan is supported by farming organizations and advocates for farmworkers, and has some bipartisan support in Congress. But its critics, many of them House and Senate Republicans, say it is an amnesty plan that would open the door to a surge of illegal immigration.

Opposition to the proposal is not limited to the GOP. One of Craig’s harshest critics on the Senate floor was Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California, who said the program offered “nirvana” to Mexican workers who might be contemplating crossing the border illegally to seek work in the United States.

If they can make it across the border and work 100 hours on a farm, Feinstein said, they could hope to qualify for permanent residency for themselves and their immediate families.

“This is a bill of enormous dimensions,” she said. “This could be the largest immigration program in history. It could bring millions of people into this country -- workers, their children, their spouses.”

Craig responded that only those workers already in the country would be eligible for the program and warned Feinstein that if nothing were done to reform immigration policy, California could face economic collapse due to a shortage of agricultural workers.

Their sharp exchange reflected the deep tensions embedded in the immigration issue for both parties.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg, this short debate,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee.

Republicans in both chambers are at odds over the immigration issue. Some in the party, including President Bush, argue that something must be done to legalize the status of at least some of the estimated 10 million illegal immigrants in this country. Bush has said he would support a guest worker program that would offer temporary legal status to millions of workers, but he has put forward no specific plan.

Others in the party, including some committee chairmen in the House and the Senate, say the government must crack down on illegal immigration and must not reward those who broke the law to come here. They oppose the president’s guest worker program if it would legalize the status of people who entered the nation illegally.

With the party so divided, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) fought hard this week to avoid an immigration debate on the Senate floor.

Frist was put on the spot when the House leadership agreed to attach controversial immigration measures to the $80-billion emergency spending bill to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and aid to Southeast Asian nations hit hard by December’s tsunami.

The House measures, known collectively as the Real ID Act, would create federal standards for driver’s licenses, tighten asylum criteria and complete the U.S. barrier along the border with Mexico south of San Diego.

The House proposals have been criticized by immigration advocates and some church organizations as anti-immigrant.

The House attached the immigration measures to its version of the emergency funding bill before sending it to the Senate last month. The Senate bill does not include the House immigration provisions. But some senators who oppose the measures fear they may survive negotiations between the chambers to reconcile their bills.

Because the House attached immigration provisions to its version of the bill, the Senate parliamentarian ruled last week that Craig’s AgJobs measure was relevant and could be offered as an amendment to the emergency funding bill. That triggered intense negotiations between Frist and Craig, between Republicans and Democrats, and within the Senate Republican caucus.

Frist told reporters Tuesday that he believed Congress needed to tackle the issue sometime this year, but did not say when. Craig said that without a specific date this spring for a debate, he would demand a vote on his amendment now.

That set the stage for Wednesday’s eruption on the Senate floor. Late in the afternoon, Craig announced that he planned to offer his amendment.

“This issue’s time has come, and it is time for the Senate to deal with it openly and forthrightly,” Craig said in a speech on the Senate floor.

In response, Cornyn and Feinstein offered a nonbinding resolution that said the Senate should pass the emergency funding bill without any immigration amendments.

The nonbinding resolution passed, 61-38, with 48 Republicans and 13 Democrats voting for it and 31 Democrats and seven Republicans voting against it. California’s two senators, both Democrats, split on the resolution, with Feinstein voting in favor and Sen. Barbara Boxer voting against it.

The negotiations among Republicans continued into the evening, with the leadership still trying to convince Craig not to pursue his amendment.

In the meantime, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) offered another immigration-related amendment, aimed at saving crab processors on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. They have said they might be forced to close their factories this summer because they cannot get visas to hire temporary workers from Mexico.

The H2B visa program, launched in 1990, allows a quota of 66,000 seasonal unskilled workers to cross into the United States annually to work in restaurants, food-processing plants and other nonagricultural jobs. This year, the quota was reached before most of Maryland’s crab processors were able to hire their workers. Mikulski’s amendment would allow workers who had previously held jobs under the program to return this year and next, giving Congress time to enact comprehensive immigration reform that presumably would also deal with the H2B program.

Mikulski said she felt justified in seeking to attach her amendment to the emergency funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan because it was the only legislative vehicle likely to get through Congress fast enough to save the crab processors.

The Senate debate is expected to resume again today and to last at least through this week. It could continue into next week if Craig advances his amendment.

Ultimately, the spending bill, which enjoys broad bipartisan support, is expected to pass the Senate. The House and the Senate will then have to agree to an identical version to send to the president.