Enzi, Thomas: No amnesty for illegals
Monday, May 21, 2007
By Ben Cannon

Wyoming Senators Mike Enzi and Craig Thomas are among the minority of U.S. Senators who oppose moving forward on a comprehensive immigration reform bill unveiled last week.

Both take issue with the prospect that the bill might pave a road to legal status for most of the country’s 12 million illegal immigrants.

On Monday, after a full draft of the bill was made available to them over the weekend, the Senate voted 69-23 to start work on the legislation, which will put it through a thorough review process.

There is, though, passionate and outspoken – albeit, thus far, outnumbered – opposition that could derail the measure before it has a chance to move to the House of Representatives for consideration there.

Coy Knobel, a media handler on Enzi’s staff, passed along a statement that said if the final version of the bill includes amnesty, Enzi will oppose it. What Enzi advocates is an immigration bill that “would just have to be fair to the people who are already [legally] trying to become citizens,â€