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Sen Kennedy sees passage of immigration overhaul
Mon Apr 10, 2006 4:08 PM ET

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sen. Edward Kennedy, the leading liberal voice in the U.S. Congress, on Monday likened huge rallies by immigrants across the country to the drive for civil rights by black Americans half a century ago.

And in an interview as he prepared to address a large immigrants' rights rally planned for Washington, Kennedy said he was confident a divided Congress would come together and fairly revamp the country's immigration laws.

"This is reminiscent of the civil rights movement," said Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat first elected to the Senate in 1962. "It's equal in terms of intensity and feelings among the groups."

The 74-year-old lawmaker, long seen as a crusader for America's poor and downtrodden, is helping lead a drive within both parties to overhaul U.S. immigration laws in a way that would both tighten border security and provide a way that would give most of the estimated 11.5 million to 12 million people in the United States illegally a chance for citizenship.

In exchange, they must hold jobs, pay back taxes and meet other requirements, such as showing a knowledge of English.

Critics, including labor unions opposed to a guest-worker program and conservatives fearful of lax border security, denounce the measure as amnesty that would lead to even more illegal immigration. But backers, including many employers, say immigrants, legal and illegal, are vital to the economy.

"I think we'll get an immigration law," Kennedy said in his Senate office. "The issue is not going away."

The senator expressed hope that Republican President George W. Bush, with whom he has crossed swords on a number of issues, including the Iraq war, will keep pushing for a comprehensive immigration overhaul including a new guest worker program.

"He has taken a lot of heat from members of his own party," Kennedy noted.

But he said Bush could score a major victory if he can persuade Congress to agree on sweeping legislation.

"It's an overarching issue of our time," Kennedy said. "It'd be a major accomplishment for him and our country."

NATION OF IMMIGRANTS

While the United States is a nation of immigrants, there has been mounting discontent in recent years with what virtually all agree is a broken system that has allowed a rising flood of illegal immigrants.

There is widespread opposition, especially in the Hispanic community, to a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives that would make all illegal immigrants in the United States felons, erect a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border and punish Americans who try to help illegal workers.

With hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets in recent days to protest the bill, Kennedy said: "I think Republicans touched a very raw nerve when they talk about the criminalization of the undocumented."

For many illegal immigrants, making them criminals enhanced "their sense of fear and uncertainty," he added. "They want to be part of 'The American Dream' and have their children part of the dream as well."

Kennedy noted that a half a century ago, his brother, President John F. Kennedy, declared: "We are a nation of immigrants."

Senate action on a possible compromise plan collapsed last Friday amid fighting over possible amendments many feared would effectively kill the bill. Kennedy said he expects problems to be worked out once Congress returns from its two-week recess at the end of the month.

"There is a groundswell of support for this proposal that we effectively worked out in a strong bipartisan way," Kennedy said.

In Kennedy's speech prepared for Monday's rally in Washington, he invoked the memory of one of the nation's leading civil rights leaders, though no similar figurehead has emerged from the diverse Hispanic and other populations that have coalesced around the immigration issue in the massive protest rallies.

"More than four decades ago, near this place, Martin Luther King called on the nation to let freedom ring," Kennedy said. "Freedom did ring -- and freedom can ring again. It is time for Americans to lift their voices now -- in pride for our immigrant past and in pride for our immigrant future."