Thread: Texas senators still unhappy with immigrant bill

Texas senators still unhappy with immigrant bill

Hutchison, Cornyn worry plan amounts to amnesty


12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, May 26, 2007
By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News
tgillman@dallasnews.com

WASHINGTON – A week into the debate over a broad immigration package, Texas senators remain deeply skeptical and said Friday that they're frustrated they haven't been able to strip provisions they view as amnesty for illegal immigrants.

"As long as people feel like the only one whose voice that counts are the people who have enough money to hire lobbyists, or maybe a small core group of senators sort of making deals behind closed doors, this bill is going nowhere," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "I'm not going to support a bill, just any old bill, just to send the bill to the president. It's got to be a good bill. This bill does not meet that description. I don't know if it ever will."

A New York Times/CBS News poll published Friday found that a large majority of Americans support the broad outlines of the deal, including its more controversial elements. Two-thirds supported the idea of giving illegal immigrants "a chance to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status," and large numbers also backed creation of a guest worker program, along with tightened border controls.

Mr. Cornyn, in a call with Texas reporters Friday, countered that other polls show far lower support for legalization, and in any case his office is getting 700 to 1,000 calls per day about the package – at least 80 percent from people who oppose the deal.

"I really respond more to that kind of direct contact ... than I do to a poll in The New York Times," he said.

Congress is in recess next week, and lawmakers are likely to hear strong views back home on both sides – from labor, clergy and immigrant advocates who support the package, and from others angry about perceived porous borders and lax enforcement and the prospect that 12 million illegal immigrants could eventually gain U.S. citizenship under the plan's "Z visa" provisions.

Business groups are pressuring lawmakers to support the pact, unveiled last week after closed-door negotiations between the White House and a bipartisan group of senators. In Texas, a coalition called Texas Employers for Immigration Reform has launched a grassroots push to get the senators' attention, and Mr. Cornyn lashed out a bit Friday, saying these interests have resisted workplace enforcement.

"The chamber of commerce has been difficult to deal with when it comes to effective identification of workers and making sure that employers don't hire people not qualified to work in the country," Mr. Cornyn said. "It is a little bit of a balancing act because there are different people interested in different things."

He also expressed frustration that the dozen senators who hammered out the package have made it hard for critics to change the bill. He is insisting, for instance, on a provision that would exclude anyone who eludes a deportation order or re-enters the country illegally after being deported – both felonies – from eligibility for the guest worker or citizenship tracks.

"I hope they realize, the 'grand bargainers' – and I give them credit where credit's due – but they're not the only ones whose votes and whose amendments count," Mr. Cornyn said.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, also said Friday that she remains unhappy with the bill. In particular, she wants a "touchback" provision that would require illegal immigrants to return to their home country within 18 months before they can apply for permission to work in the United States and get in line for citizenship.

"I'm trying to take the amnesty out of the bill by requiring people who are going to work in this country to go home, get right with the law, apply from their home countries and come back for the temporary worker program," she said on MSNBC. "It is so important that people not think that you can come to our country illegally and if you stay long enough, eventually you'll never have to go home and you can be legalized."

On the other hand, she said, the package as it stands does have a number of laudable elements: more border guards and the combination of tighter security and a guest worker program.

"You have to have a temporary worker program, or you will never have border security," she said. "What we can't have is amnesty."

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OPINION Letters

They said no more amnesty, but here it is again

In supporting the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, Sen. Ted Kennedy said, "This amnesty will give citizenship to only 1.1 to 1.3 million illegal aliens. We will secure the borders henceforth. We will never again bring forward another amnesty bill like this." Secure the borders henceforth? Did we somehow miss that action?

If Mr. Kennedy lied to us then, how can we trust him now? The current proposal before the Senate will certainly bring about another flood of illegal immigration because it contains the same basic elements as the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.

Amnesty is the pardoning of immigration lawbreakers and rewarding them with the objective of their crimes, be it jobs or green cards. Even if they are required to pay fines or back taxes, (how can they afford to do this?), learn English – or even go to the back of the line for their green cards (do you see this happening?), if the end result is legal permission to work or stay for any period of time in the United States, it is amnesty.

Mary Thompson, Dallas



What do we have to do to get our voices heard?

The people have spoken to no avail. No one in Congress hears us or cares what we have to say, apparently, since the newest bill to come up is yet again offering a path to citizenship for lawbreakers, better known as illegal immigrants.

What is the deal, people? How do we get our elected officials to hear us? Attrition through enforcement is the only thing that may save our country. We have to stop the illegal invasion now, before we become The United States of Mexico. No amnesty. No guest workers. No anchor babies.

Cyndi McAnear, Watauga



This proposal is unfair to legal immigrants

I am appalled at the immigration reform being proposed by the federal government. Amnesty by any other name is still amnesty.

Millions of people will be rewarded for breaking the law, encouraging even more to follow suit. This is patently unfair to those immigrants who are trying to enter the country the right way, and who are welcome. I implore Congress to drop this farce and pass meaningful immigration reform legislation. The proposed bill will only make matters worse.

Leroy Whitaker, McKinney

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