Sessions says he'll fight deal on immigration reform

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/i ... xml&coll=2

Tuesday, May 22, 2007
MARY ORNDORFF
News Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON - Sen. Jeff Sessions, who at one time was hopeful for a bipartisan compromise on immigration reform, said Monday he'll fight the deal that has been struck, which he believes is too lenient and expensive.

After a weekend of research and deliberation, Sessions, R-Ala., came out swinging Monday in opposition to the legislation, similar to his posture on last year's version.

"I feel like that, unless we stand up with clarity and resoluteness, we may see an attempt to move this bill through this week with a very limited number of amendments and very limited debate, and that's unacceptable," Sessions said. "I'm prepared to use whatever tactic is appropriate to resist that."

The White House and Democratic leaders had been pushing for a quick Senate vote, possibly before the Memorial Day holiday recess. In a schedule change announced Monday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada agreed to extend the debate into the first week of June, which is still short of the month Sessions said the issue needed.

Despite the extending of debate, Sessions remained opposed, his staff said. He still planned to use three hours of time he had reserved on the Senate floor to voice his objections.

Although Sessions said he would prepare amendments, his first strategy is to stop the bill in its tracks.

The first test of the bill's support came Monday evening when the Senate voted 69-23 to open formal debate on the immigration bill, clearing the required 60-vote threshold. Sessions and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., voted against it.

"I don't think it's workable. The more I look at it, the more uncomfortable I've become about it," Sessions said.

The push for a quick vote, however, was only one of Sessions' objections.

On Monday morning, he endorsed an estimate by the conservative Heritage Foundation that every illegal immigrant allowed to stay in the country who doesn't have a high school diploma would collect almost $20,000 more in government benefits than they pay in taxes each year. Senior research fellow Robert Rector projected the number of illegal immigrants who would stay through retirement and calculated the lifetime cost for all of them at $2.3 trillion.

"They are costly," Rector said. "They never contribute more than they take out. But when they hit retirement, they become very costly."

Despite portions of the newly brokered compromise that Sessions supports - such as increased border security, more merit-based considerations on who is allowed to come to the United States, and tighter rules against employers hiring illegal workers - it was not enough to overcome his concerns that too many people who entered illegally would be rewarded with the right to stay.

Republican and Democratic supporters of the plan, including President Bush, point out that illegal immigrants would have significant and punitive hurdles to clear to stay in the country, such as admitting their crime, paying a fine and undergoing additional criminal background checks. To stay longer, they would have to pay even more fines, learn English, leave and re-enter.

While Sessions has said it would be impossible to deport 12 million people, he has not found a solution that isn't some form of amnesty, which he opposes. On Monday, he said it was "not impractical to send some" of the illegal immigrants back to their home country.

Sessions this spring said behind-the-scenes negotiations on immigration reform were promising, but his optimism had vanished by Monday.

"I'm disappointed, almost heartbroken, because we made some progress," Sessions said on the floor of the Senate. "But the political wheeling and dealing and compromising and splitting the baby ... resulted in a circumstance where it just didn't get far enough."