Senators unhappy with immigration plan

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By Adam Sichko
POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU
05/29/2007

WASHINGTON — The small group of senators who unveiled ambitious immigration reforms expected to vote on the legislation before Memorial Day.

Instead, many of their Senate colleagues have sounded sharp notes of discord during grueling debates that will continue when lawmakers return to Washington this week. And Sen. Claire McCaskill, for one, isn't convinced the plan can survive.

"I feel like Goldilocks," said McCaskill, D-Mo. "Either it's too hot or too cold as far as I'm concerned, and I don't think we've found the 'just right' yet.

"And we may not," she added. "I'd be a 'no' vote at this point."
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Many senators, including those from Missouri and Illinois, have been quick to voice their complaints. The intense debate has frequently pitted party members against one another and cast doubt on whether the sweeping plan can outlast a seemingly endless stream of proposed changes.

As Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., said, "The devil's in the details." But it's more than the details causing senatorial angst. The bill's major initiatives are also proving to be stumbling blocks, including:

— Creating a temporary guest worker program.

— Beefing up border security with a fence, technologies and thousands more border control agents.

— Providing a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

"We all understand this is a work in progress," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., one of the bill's creators.

Senators aren't the only people concerned about the immigration issues. McCaskill's office workers, as well as those in the office of Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said constituents have inundated them with telephone calls.

"It would be unfair to characterize the response we've had as anything other than adamantly opposed," McCaskill said. "It's the nature of the beast that there really hasn't been anybody who's called that's been happy with it."

Durbin and McCaskill expressed varying concerns about the guest worker program, which would allow immigrants to work in the U.S. for two to six years.

Bond offered an amendment curbing the path-to-citizenship plan, which he labeled as "amnesty" that "rewards illegal immigrants." Bond and McCaskill voted Thursday to support a different amendment that eliminated the path to citizenship. The majority of senators, including Durbin and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., voted against that idea.

BASED ON POINTS

On the Senate floor, Obama spoke out against a proposed points-based immigrant application process giving education and workplace skills higher value than family ties.

He called the idea a "radical experiment in social engineering" and said he plans to offer amendments to get rid of it.

"How many of our forefathers would have measured up under this point system? How many would have been turned back at Ellis Island?" Obama asked.

Obama's stance on immigration will get special scrutiny as his presidential campaign proceeds; he has said he hopes "to be able to support" the final bill.

Durbin projected that the bill would get through the Senate and the House, and said the true test would come when the two chambers try to craft a final bill in conference.

"I just think doing nothing is not an option," Durbin said. "We can't walk away from our responsibility. We have to make some serious changes, even though they'll be controversial — and some will be painful."

Immigrant advocacy groups are lobbying senators to push ahead, said Frank Sharry, head of the National Immigration Forum.

"The debate has been quite a roller-coaster ride," he said. "We're both fighting like hell and biting our fingernails."