More Students Walk Out, Protest Immigration Legislation
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HOUSTON -- More students in the Houston area protested Tuesday as the full Senate begin debating proposed changes to the country's immigration laws.
Officials with the Fort Bend, Houston, Pasadena and Lamar Consolidated independent school district said hundreds of students walked out of school between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Houston police said they've taken some students into custody and several others were cited for daytime curfew violations.
About 300 students from four high schools in Irving, a Dallas suburb, walked out with plans to head into Dallas for a student rally in support of immigrant rights. The students told reporters they expected to head to Dallas City Hall, where a rally held Saturday drew hundreds.
KXAS-TV in Dallas showed aerial views of pickup trucks filled with students, cars with students riding on car trunks, and students on foot headed from Grand Prairie toward Kiest Park in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas.
A girl's hand was severed when a vanload of Dallas students rolled over at an intersection. Dallas Independent School District spokesman Donnie Claxton said the van contained students from Spruce High School and sped past Skyline High into an intersection, where it overturned.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a measure Monday that would permit illegal aliens currently in the country to apply for citizenship without first having to return home, a process that would take at least six years.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he hopes the Senate will pass an immigration reform bill by April 7. But any bill produced by the Senate would have to be reconciled with a House bill that would make illegal immigrant felons.
A get-tough version that passed the House would add more fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and increase penalties for those who sneak across, but it did not include the guest worker program that Bush wants.
President George W. Bush is insisting that Congress send him a bill that not only strengthens U.S. borders, but also allows foreigners to have a guest permit that lets them work temporarily in the United States in low-paying jobs. "It's a humane way to deal with people who are making a contribution to our economy," he said.
There was no immediate White House reaction to specifics of the Senate panel version, but it was more in line with what Bush has proposed than was the House bill.
Congress already has failed to give Bush several other priorities that he asked for during his second term. Despite spending months last year pitching an overhaul of Social Security, lawmakers never even took up a bill for debate. And this year lawmakers turned back one of Bush's three nominees to the Supreme Court before Harriet Miers's name even came to a vote and made clear they would block the administration's plan to let a company based in the United Arab Emirates run some U.S. ports.
