Thread: House GOP Leaders Delay Immigration Bill

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...062000926.html

House GOP Leaders Delay Immigration Bill
Move Could Bury Bush's Legislation

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 20, 2006; 4:00 PM

In a move that could all but bury President Bush's high-profile immigration legislation, House Republican leaders announced today that House committee chairmen will hold off on negotiating a final bill until completing a series of provocative field hearings on immigration legislation through the month of August.

The announcement was the clearest sign yet that House Republicans have largely given up on passing a broad rewrite of the nation's immigration laws before the November elections. House GOP leaders said today they would hold the hearings even before naming negotiators to work out a compromise between the House's get-tough approach on illegal immigration and the Senate measure that couples border security with a new pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the United States.

"I'm not putting any timeline on this thing, but I think we need this thing done right," said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

Asked whether a deal could be struck with the Senate this fall, when lawmakers will be in the midst of a difficult reelection season, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said, "I think that's possible. I don't know how likely it is."

The decision was widely seen as a slap both at the Senate and the president, who has been pushing hard for a comprehensive immigration bill that would tighten border controls, establish a new guest worker program and offer most of the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants a chance to become citizens. The announcement came shortly after Bush left the country on a trip to Europe.

House Republicans have long frowned upon the president's approach, passing instead a bill that would tighten border controls, clamp down on employers who hire undocumented workers and declare illegal immigrants and those who assist them to be felons. Their position solidified this month after a California special election to replace jailed former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R). Republican candidate Brian Bilbray won the seat, beating back a tough Democratic challenge by running hard against the president's approach.

In the ensuing weeks, House leaders dragged their feet on naming the negotiators for a House-Senate conference on immigration, and today they revealed an alternative course of action. Field hearings will be held at the discretion of the chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee, the House Homeland Security Committee, the House Government Reform Committee and any other committee that can even show tangential jurisdiction over immigration, GOP leaders said.

And the subject matter is likely to be volatile. Among possible topics, according to GOP aides: the decision by the Senate to allow undocumented workers to keep Social Security benefits earned while they worked in the country illegally; the assertion that under the Senate bill, illegal immigrants would be required to pay back taxes on only three of the last five years of tax liabilities to get on the path to citizenship; and the projection that the Senate plan could allow as many as 100 million new immigrants into the country over the next 20 years.

All of that would be designed to push the debate back to the House's position that any immigration legislation should first aim at securing the nation's borders, GOP leaders said.

The field hearings "will be about forming a credible strategy and a credible plan to secure the borders," said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Blunt's chief deputy whip. "That's what the issue is. Once we can accomplish that, we can begin to talk about the rest of the equation, the 12 million illegals here. . . ."

Hastert added: "Right now, I haven't heard a lot of pressure to have a path to citizenship."

While the leaders were careful not to declare the president's approach dead, they were openly disparaging of the bipartisan legislation passed by the Senate that conformed to Bush's wishes. House Republican Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) called it "the Kennedy bill," even though Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) was joined by numerous Republicans as co-sponsors.

"That's what I call it," she said.

Once we can accomplish that, we can begin to talk about the rest of the equation, the 12 million illegals here. . . ."

We can have a bus ticket fundraiser.

I have an open air cattle trailer. It's clean, roomy and road worthy.

Dixie