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Sunday, September 18, 2005

Immigration-reform bill can't seem to get a break
Washington bureau chief Dena Bunis on why immigration legislation has bogged down.

By DENA BUNIS
The Orange County Register

WASHINGTON – Some issues just never get a break.

Others seem downright jinxed.

Take immigration.

Even under the best of circumstances, getting the kind of sweeping immigration-reform bill that some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing for this year would take some incredibly heavy lifting. And perfect timing.

At least in the Senate, with two major proposals being put forward – one by the unlikely bipartisan team of John McCain and Ted Kennedy and the other by Republicans John Cornyn and Jon Kyl – it seemed this spring that there would be at least the start of a major showdown on the issue.

It was always going to be tight to fit in such a complicated major debate.

The war in Iraq was still taking up a lot of the White House's time and it's always been a given that for any immigration bill to get up a head of steam there was going to have to be some pushing from the president. But there was some movement. Lawmakers were having meetings with senior administration staffers. President George W. Bush was beginning to talk about it a little. All of a sudden more reporters were getting interested in the subject.

Enter the first distraction. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor decided to announce her retirement on July 1. That cleared the decks for the Judiciary Committee. It now had a confirmation hearing to plan and execute. And that's the same committee that will have to approve any immigration legislation.

Even so, the thinking was there still might be time.

Then Hurricane Katrina hit. Much more than just another distraction.

The aftermath of the Gulf Coast disaster has put virtually everything but the confirmation hearing of Judge John Roberts or the most routine, noncontroversial legislation on the back burner.

Then Chief Justice William Rehnquist died. Roberts' nomination was elevated to chief justice. And there will likely be another Supreme Court nominee to confirm sometime soon. So more work for Judiciary. Less time for anything else.

Having said all this, Cornyn, a Texan who chairs the Senate immigration subcommittee, refuses to give up.

I met up with him earlier this week on the subway – the little train that carries senators from their office buildings to the Capitol. He was coming from the Roberts hearing and headed to the chamber for a vote. And he insisted that Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter has told him he still intends to markup an immigration bill next month. (Markup is Capitol Hill-speak for having a committee vote on a bill and send it to the full Senate.)

Cornyn said senators have been at the White House talking to staff about immigration and the staffs are trying to agree on the thorniest issue in this matter – what kind of guest-worker program to propose and how to handle the more than 10 million illegal immigrants living and working in the U.S.

But the momentum just doesn't seem to be there.

This isn't the first time immigration has fallen off the tracks.

On Sept 4, 2001, Bush told a small group of reporters that any new immigration policy should allow illegal immigrants already here to work legally in the United States. At the same time, he told us that political realities within his own party were going to make it difficult to get a breakthrough on this issue.

Those comments gave hope to those pushing for broad, expansive immigration reform.

Mexican President Vicente Fox came to Washington on Sept. 5, 2001. He left two days later with a pledge from Bush to come up with a solution to the migration issue that Congress would accept.

Four days after that, the World Trade Center in New York was leveled by a terrorist attack.

It has taken almost four years to get the immigration issue back on the radar screen and it still has not gotten back the momentum it had before the attacks.

For those who oppose any kind of guest-worker program, gridlock may be a good thing.

But that also means that the changes in border enforcement could also end up stalled. (And conventional wisdom is that the closer it gets to next year's congressional elections, the less likely it is that lawmakers will want to tackle such a volatile issue).

The House targeted Sept. 30 for its adjournment. The Senate didn't put a date on its calendar.

Before Katrina, the buzz around the halls was that the two chambers would wind up by Thanksgiving. No one is saying now when they'll get out.

But however long the session goes, it would be a major feat if Cornyn, Kyl, McCain, et al., managed to get action on immigration this year. But you know, even getting a bill out of committee would be a moral victory of sorts.

I wouldn't bet the farm on it.