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Migrant reform hits snag
House speaker wants "long look" at Senate proposal
Sara A. Carter, Staff Writer
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s remarks on Tuesday quelled any hopes for a quick resolution to the debate on immigration reform in Congress, but most lawmakers and activists weren’t surprised by the stalemate.
Hastert said he wanted to take a ‘‘long look’’ at the Senate bill that would offer millions of illegal immigrants citizenship. That ‘‘long look,’’ House members said, means that nothing is going to happen.

‘‘I’m not surprised,’’ said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who has publicly criticized the Senate bill. ‘‘You can’t compromise on this issue. I don’t think there is going to be a bill. In fact, I feel better about not having a bill than to have a bill that would offer amnesty.’’

Hastert said hearings on the Senate bill should be held before appointing anyone to a House-Senate committee to negotiate a compromise immigration bill. Later, he said he was unsure what the House’s next move would be.

House Majority Leader John Boehner agreed with Hastert.

‘‘I think we should know clearly what’s in the Senate bill,’’ Boehner said.

‘‘If people are serious about doing an immigration bill this year, it really needs to be finished before the August recess,’’ Boehner told a breakfast forum at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. ‘‘When we come back after the recess, we’re into September. It’s an election year – trying to do meaningful, substantive policy work at that point is going to be difficult.’’

Jo Maney, a spokeswoman for Rep. David Dreier, R-Glendora, said that the delay is to be expected and that reviewing the Senate bill is a process that takes time. Dreier, chairman of the House Rules Committee, said Friday that he would not support any legislation that grants amnesty to illegal immigrants.

Dreier was in session and could not be reached late Tuesday night.

‘‘The most important thing about this debate is that we do it right and that nothing is rushed for the sake of getting something done,’’ Maney said. ‘‘It is important to resolve the illegal immigration problem, but the emphasis must be on enhancing border security.’’

Jose Calderon, president of the Latino and Latina Roundtable and chairman of multicultural studies at Cal Poly Pomona, said he was not surprised by Hastert’s move. Calderon said that border enforcement is not a solution to the problem of illegal immigration.

‘‘I expected the House to not move on immigration reform after the Senate passed their version,’’ Calderon said. ‘‘The enforcement angle just does not work, and the growth of immigrants is continuing.

‘‘We need to look at a way to integrate them into society. ... This enforcement continues to come from the outlook of Sept. 11 and terrorism. But so far the threats have only come from the Canadian border, yet we don’t see the same kind of enforcement taking place on the Canadian border.’’

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also scheduled a hearing for Monday to review provisions in the bill requiring employers to verify that their workers are legal.

Cornyn said he opposes a provision allowing workers to use up to 20 documents to verify they are legal workers.

Also, the Department of Homeland Security has raised concerns about how quickly it must have in place an electronic system that employers will use to verify their workers’ legal status, Cornyn’s spokesman Don Stewart said.

‘‘This will give us a chance to look at it in more detail,’’ Cornyn said.

Sending a bill that has already passed the Senate to hearings would be a highly unusual move and make completing a final bill before Congress goes on its summer recess in August far less likely.

Disagreement on procedural issue has kept negotiations from starting, but there were hopes that could be resolved this week.

The Senate bill that passed nearly three weeks ago offers most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants an opportunity for citizenship, while offering millions more from outside the country a chance to apply for residency through a guest-worker program.

In mid-December, the House passed an enforcement-only bill. The bill did not include an avenue to citizenship for illegal immigrants, nor did it create a guest-worker program.

The day the Senate bill was approved, Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said waiting to negotiate a final bill would be ‘‘irresponsible.’’ Rep. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, echoed his comments a day later, saying voters should be able to assess when they go to the ballot box in November how their lawmakers did on the issue.

Rep. Lamar Smith, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said holding hearings on the Senate bill make ‘‘great sense.’’

The recent election victory of San Diego Republican Brian Bilbray, who made tough anti-immigration measures a centerpiece of his campaign, ‘‘changed a lot of people’s thinking on the issue,’’ he said. ‘‘It shows how politically advantageous it is to talk about the issue and what you would do and what the federal government should do.’’

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., urged Hastert to drop any plans for hearings.

Flake sponsored an early version of the Senate bill with Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., who also called for the bill to move forward.

‘‘Only a small, vocal faction wants to stop a sensible guest-worker program and ignore the reality of the 11 million undocumented living in the country now,’’ Kolbe said in a statement. ‘‘We must not let any delays impede our progress toward solving this problem.’’

The Associated Press contributed to this report.