http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/13/politics/13spend.html

Frist Opposes Amendments on Immigrants
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: April 13, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 12 - Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, said on Tuesday that he was discouraging efforts to incorporate immigration and border security measures into the Senate version of a supplemental military spending bill, which would set the stage for showdowns among Congressional Republicans over immigration later this year.

Meeting with reporters, Dr. Frist, of Tennessee, said, "I am encouraging my colleagues to defer, to postpone discussions of immigration and to postpone that debate."

He said, however, that he was still negotiating with senators who seek to add immigration provisions to the military spending bill.

The House version of the bill includes provisions to block illegal immigrants from obtaining standard driver's licenses, to make it easier to reject requests for asylum and to override environmental rules blocking construction of a barrier along California's border with Mexico.

Senators from each party seek to add amendments that would make it easier for employers to hire more foreign workers.

The immigration debate reveals a fault line in the Republican Party, pitting cultural conservatives hostile to illegal immigrants against business groups that seek foreign laborers. President Bush has declared his support for a guest-worker program that would be open to currently illegal immigrants.

On Tuesday, Dr. Frist called immigration "a huge issue, an issue that we have to address this year, that the president put a proposal on the table last year - legislatively, we did not address it - I believe we have to address this year."

House Republicans, however, said that negotiators in a conference last year promised that the provisions would be included in some "must-pass" legislation, like the supplemental military spending bill. In negotiations with the Senate, House Republicans added, they were determined to keep the provisions in the final version of the bill.

Senate Democrats want to offer a number of amendments seeking to loosen immigration restrictions or expand foreign-workers programs. Dr. Frist and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, were in talks on Tuesday night about whether to limit the number of immigration amendments to a handful, with some Democrats seeking assurances that the final bill would not include the House's immigration restrictions, aides said.

Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, and Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, said they planned to offer an amendment that would make more visas available for temporary seasonal workers, which they said would be needed by the hotel and fishing industries this summer.

Meanwhile, two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona, advocating the tightening of border security along the lines of the House measures, said they also favored deferring the immigration debate in the Senate and enacting comprehensive measures that would also include some form of Mr. Bush's guest-worker program.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a conservative strategist working with the White House on its guest-worker proposal, predicted that each side would ultimately succeed only through comprehensive legislation that tightens border security and at the same time adds foreign workers to the labor pool. "Immigration reform and border security are not competitors; they are the same thing," he said.

He said he believed that the House Republican opponents of the guest-worker program would "get boxed out by a bipartisan coalition," and that Mr. Bush could achieve his guest-worker program mostly through strong Democratic support.