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Immigrant guest worker program stalls in committee
By LILLY ROCKWELL
Cox News Service
Thursday, March 16, 2006
WASHINGTON — Under a looming deadline, the Senate Judiciary Committee struggled Wednesday to reach a consensus on the type of guest worker program to offer the nation's nearly 12 million illegal immigrants.

Even with the business community and President Bush supporting a guest worker program, the committee couldn't overcome the opposition of border-state lawmakers to any proposal that resembles amnesty for the millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States.

Thursday is the last day the committee has allotted to craft a massive immigration reform bill that incorporates border security, greater penalties against illegal immigrants and their employers and a guest worker program.

The committee is charged with drafting an immigration proposal to bring to the floor. But after three days of work, lawmakers have concentrated their efforts on border security, failing to come to an agreement on whether to criminalize the status of illegal immigrants and the scope of a guest worker program for illegal immigrants already in the country and future immigrants.

Both Republicans and Democrats said they need more time to work on immigration reform. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn, set a deadline of March 27, just after Congress returns from a weeklong recess, to begin floor debate.

"This is a very complicated bill," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "And we have to get it right."

Three committee Democrats drafted a letter to Frist on Wednesday asking for more time to work on the bill.

"Arbitrary deadlines and half-finished proposals serve neither the Senate nor the country well," the letter said.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who is floating his own guest worker proposal, said he wants a swift movement to a floor debate, where he is more likely to receive support for his tough-on-immigration proposal.

"It's important to move to the floor because if we don't, I don't know when we'll have another opportunity," Cornyn said.

The last time Congress addressed immigration was in 1996, when it toughened border security. The last time it attempted to change the legal status of immigrants was in 1986, with an amnesty program that allowed 3 million illegal immigrants to become citizens.

Immigrant rights groups and Democrats say they are concerned that bringing a bill to the Senate floor too soon will result in a chaotic and confusing amendments process that ultimately produces a bill that no one understands.

Wading through the 300-page bill in four days has proved difficult. More than 100 amendments were proposed, seven different proposals on guest worker programs have surfaced, and often the committee has lacked enough of a quorum to vote.

During an election year, the issue of how to handle border security and illegal immigration has been highly charged, producing a sharp division within the Republican Party on the type of guest worker program to support.

At issue is whether to set up a temporary guest worker program that requires illegal immigrants to return to their home countries at the end of a certain time period, or whether to allow illegal immigrants already in the United States to legally work and eventually become citizens.

Proponents of a bill pushed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., would allow some of the millions of illegal immigrants already in the United States to work legally and eventually become citizens. Supporters of Cornyn's bill, co-sponsored with Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., want illegal immigrants to return home after working for five years. Yet another cadre of lawmakers equates any type of guest worker program as amnesty.

The House passed an enforcement-only bill in December that contained no guest worker proposal, and endorsed the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the southern border with Mexico.