Immigration confrontation

THE MUCH-BATTERED SENATE version of immigration reform, all but left for dead a mere six weeks ago, is expected to gain approval today, setting up a confrontation with an unacceptable bill that has already passed the House of Representatives. The Senate’s more comprehensive approach -- tougher border security coupled with ways to address the nation’s labor needs via a guest worker program and the legalization of millions of workers already in the country -- is sensible, although the bill being voted on is a rather disfigured version of the original legislation sponsored by Sens. John McCain and Edward M. Kennedy.

Still, senators should vote to support this bill. And then they should brace themselves for a contentious conference with the House, where not even Karl Rove can get much of a hearing when he asks for support for immigration reform.

In the last harried week, the Senate successfully fended off several amendments that tried to remove paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants currently in the country, eliminate guest worker programs or require that enforcement measures be put into place before any other element of the bill.

Other amendments that made it through the Senate offer useful changes, or at least attempt to sweeten the immigration deal for the House, which intends to stick to its enforcement-only plan. They include requiring additional detention facilities, increased fencing on the Southwestern border and tougher employer sanctions.

But other changes mar the Senate bill, even if its comprehensiveness is intact. The proposed number of guest workers allowed to enter the U.S. each year was foolishly reduced from 325,000 to 200,000, and another amendment would make English the nation’s official language.

The Senate regrettably failed to approve Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) proposal for an “orange card.” Feinstein’s amendment would have streamlined the unwieldy measure in the bill that dictates three legalization processes (based on length of residence in the U.S.) for undocumented immigrants, requiring individuals who have been here less than two years to leave the country. This could force many of the estimated 2 million recent arrivals to go deeper underground or commit fraud.

Ideally, the bill’s flaws will be fixed in conference with House negotiators. But of course the House leadership will be pulling in the other direction.

Some representatives, such as Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), are talking about the need for a guest worker program, but such enlightenment is in short supply among House Republicans. And that could prove fatal, given Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) anti-democratic insistence that legislation emerging from the House-Senate conference must win the support of a majority of House Republicans before his chamber votes on it.