Sunday, April 22, 2007
Immigration issue fuels season of back-room deals
Letter from Washington: Senators meeting with White House officials to try and reach agreement on a bill.
DENA BUNIS
Washington Bureau Chief
The Orange County Register
dbunis@ocregister.com The next few weeks are likely to determine whether there's any real chance for Congress to pass a major immigration bill this year.

I don't know if there are any cigars being smoked in the room where senators are trying to work out a deal. But it's certainly happening in a back room and just a few details are trickling out about what's going on.

In some ways, those of us who have been following the legislative angst of this issue feel like we're living an installment of the movie "Groundhog Day."

Last spring, then-Senate Majority Leader Republican Bill Frist waited around while senators and their staffs went back and forth about the details of an immigration bill. Frist finally gave then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter an ultimatum: either get a bill out of committee by March 27 or he'd bring his own bill before the senators.

Specter, R-Pa., held a marathon mark-up session to try to get agreement on a bill. And just when it looked hopeless, somehow the principals got together and a measure was sent to the floor. A variation of the bill passed on May 25. It was stopped dead because there wasn't any action in the House.

Now Majority Leader Democrat Harry Reid has also given lawmakers a deadline of sorts. He hasn't been as blunt in public as Frist, but he has made it clear that he has reserved the final two weeks in May for immigration. What happens if the key senators involved in the debate can't get something to the floor by then is not clear.

Having said that, there are some big differences in the way the pre-debate debate is playing out this year as opposed to last.

First and foremost, the White House has been in the room. Well, Cabinet secretaries have at least. Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez have been personally negotiating with the senators, something that was missing from last year's effort.

What they brought to the table initially, however, was a plan that was soundly denounced by immigrant advocates and the Democratic senators involved in negotiating a plan. It made some of those who have been pushing the White House to get involved wonder why they'd lobbied so hard in the first place. But I heard at week's end that the White House is now on to a second iteration of its proposal. And it's one that has made some movement toward the other side.

Speaking of movement, it seems that two of the major players on this issue are talking to each other and are seriously working on understanding each other's positions.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., is the big Kahuna on the side of those who want to see as broad a bill as possible and want to provide as many benefits as possible to current and future immigrants. On the other side is Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. He has favored a much narrower bill, even though he would go beyond the enforcement-only strategy of many of his GOP colleagues.

If those two formidable lawmakers can actually come together on a bill, it would be smooth sailing from there on in. That's a huge if. We're hearing that Kyl has moved a ways in this debate; that he is willing to entertain some kind of legalization plan for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants here now. It's not a plan that the Kennedy forces love. But it's light years from where Kyl was before.

What's not clear is whether or how much Kennedy has moved toward the view Kyl holds that when it comes to future new immigrant workers, a temporary plan means temporary; that these new workers wouldn't be able to stay here forever.

That is a real sticking point. Kyl has been insistent that you can't call something a guest-worker program if the guests never go home. And the president has also consistently talked about a temporary program for willing workers and willing employers.

Kennedy's view has been that it's not fair to split up families and create a temporary underclass that could never work their way to the American dream.

Kennedy's folks are saying nothing has been signed off on yet, that there are unresolved issues in every one of the major aspects of a bill: enforcement, employer verification, legalization of the undocumented and a new guest-worker program.

One of the many unanswered questions is how the groups that have been advocating comprehensive change – labor, clergy, civil rights and immigrant advocates – would react to something that is less than everything.

One business lobbyist I talked to said they are still waiting to see what comes out of the closed-door confabs the senators are having. But he wouldn't rule out business accepting a truly temporary worker program if the alternative was nothing.

But immigrant advocates have told Kennedy's people in no uncertain terms that it's time for him to step up in these negotiations and set some boundaries that he won't cross – particularly when it comes to issues of family. The new White House proposal seems to be set on some sort of merit system that would be used to determine who could become legal residents and when. Credit would be given for such things as knowing English, how long someone has worked and whether he or she is working in a job particularly vital to the U.S. economy.

What advocates worry is that under such a system, low-skilled immigrants would be way at the back of the line.

I haven't seen anything written down about such a merit system, but it does make you wonder what happened to the pleas by Chertoff and Gutierrez for simplicity. There's no way that the federal immigration service I have been following for a decade could adjudicate such a system for millions of people.

So it looks like things are still at the stage where senators are desperately trying to work out a deal.

If the Senate's regular order is followed, an immigration bill would have to go through the Judiciary Committee. And to meet Reid's timetable, the negotiators had better come up with something in the next two weeks. But some have suggested – including the committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. – that an immigration bill could go right to the floor and bypass the committee process. As long as the chairman is on board, that's probably a doable scenario. In that case, the key players have more time.

As always, we'll be watching.





Contact the writer: 202-628-6381
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/ne ... 665443.php