Thursday, March 1, 2007
Bush team plugs immigration plan

Homeland Security and Commerce chiefs back comprehensive overhaul, but caution Congress to keep it simple.

By DENA BUNIS
The Orange County Register

WASHINGTON – Two Bush cabinet secretaries Wednesday pushed Congress to move forward on a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's immigration system but said a plan that is too complicated to implement would not succeed.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez reiterated the administration's position that border enforcement must be combined with a new guest worker program and a plan to legalize many of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants here now.

The requirements for applicants must be simple and straightforward,'' Chertoff told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said the more confusing or complicated the requirements, the less likely that illegal immigrants will be willing to come forward and the more likely the program would be abused.

Chertoff and Gutierrez were careful to avoid putting the administration's stamp of approval on the McCain-Kennedy measure that passed the Senate last year, although their testimony indicated that they might have trouble with complicated several-tiered structure of who would qualify for a path to citizenship. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy D-Mass., are expected to introduce a new immigration bill within the next two weeks. The measure is expected to be patterned after last year's measure.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who supported the McCain-Kennedy bill last year, says that she's having some second thoughts about such an approach.

"I am now of the opinion that we may have reached too far in doing the comprehensive bill,'' said Feinstein. Both Feinstein and Sen. Barbra Boxer, D-Calif., have been pushing for the Senate to pass the so-called Ag Jobs bill, which would legalize about 5 million agricultural workers.

Feinstein said she would like to see the agriculture bill and a measure to make it easier for illegal immigrant children going to school to enroll in college and get work permits be the first two pieces that get enacted. She also said that if a pathway is found for the 12 million illegal immigrants to obtain legal status, then maybe a new guest worker program – which would bring additional foreign workers into the United States – isn't needed.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., made it clear to the secretaries that Bush will need to be heavily involved in this debate in order for a bipartisan vote to be possible on the Senate floor.

"The most important point in this whole thing is where the president is going to be, where he is going to be publicly in this,'' Leahy said.

Much of the hearing was spent with lawmakers sparring over whether the McCain-Kennedy idea constituted amnesty.

"Where there are penalties and if the penalties are enforced, it's not an amnesty,'' said Chertoff.

"If it walks like a duck…..,'' responded Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Neb


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