http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexi ... 3reid.html

Senate Democrat visits the border


Security is just part of issue, Reid says
By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 23, 2006

SAN YSIDRO – After touring the border near San Diego yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he favors dedicating more resources to border security, but that alone would not be enough to solve the problem of illegal immigration.

During a news conference at the port of entry, he advocated a comprehensive combination of security with a guest-worker program and also a way of allowing the 11 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants already in the country to legalize their status, ultimately allowing them a path to citizenship.
“We need all three,” he said. “We can't do it on a piecemeal basis.”

Those in favor of tighter restrictions on immigration have strongly opposed legalization, scoffing at guest-worker proposals as tantamount to amnesty.

Reid said he wasn't talking about amnesty, but a more difficult earned approach that would require applicants to pay taxes and learn English.

Legislators in both the Senate and the House of Representatives have placed immigration reform on the front burner for this year, although ideas for reform have varied drastically.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has been developing a plan along the lines of what Reid discussed, with a combination of tighter enforcement, a guest-worker plan and legalization for those already here. The more conservative House, on the other hand, approved a measure in December that is enforcement-based, calling for 700 miles of additional border fencing and making it a felony to enter the country illegally, an act that is now a civil offense.

Reid called the House measure “punitive, unfair and un-American,” and said he believed a bill introduced last year by Senators John McCain, R.-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., provided a better place to start.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to consider its plan Monday, although Reid said he did not expect any legislation to be passed in the Senate next week. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has said he would push his own enforcement-based bill next week if the Judiciary Committee doesn't come up with a plan.

If Frist follows through, Reid said, “I will use every procedural avenue at my disposal to stop this bill, because it is not good for the country.”

He added later that he hoped President Bush would come forward in favor of comprehensive immigration reform as he did in his first term, when he introduced his idea for a guest-worker program.

“He has been silent since then,” Reid said. “We need his help.”

Reid traveled to San Diego yesterday after meeting with labor and hotel industry representatives in Las Vegas, where the service industry relies heavily on immigrant workers. In San Diego, he and Sheriff Bill Young of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department were given a briefing and a helicopter tour by the Border Patrol.

After a tour of the San Ysidro port of entry and a visit to a recently discovered cross-border drug tunnel, they planned to meet with local labor, church and agricultural industry representatives last night.

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Leslie Berestein: (619) 542-4579; leslie.berestein@uniontrib.com