SALAZAR LIKENS IMMIGRATION BILL OPPONENTS TO BOMB-THROWERS


By: ROBERT WELLER - Associated Press
June 9, 2007

DENVER -- Sen. Ken Salazar on Friday likened opponents of a foundering immigration bill to "bomb-throwers" and said they are compromising national security.

The Colorado Democrat, who played a key role in crafting the legislation, said it isn't dead dead, even though the Senate is now turning to other matters.

"For those who are bomb-throwers that say this is not tough legislation with respect to the 12 million people who are here (illegally) -- it is tough legislation," he said.

Salazar, who was back in Colorado a day after the bill failed a crucial vote, said some of the measure's opponents don't want any bill to pass.

"From my point of view, those groups ... are compromising the security of the United States," he said.

Salazar praised President Bush and Republican senators who backed the bill, saying they "have taken a lot of arrows in their back." He said he hopes Bush can get the Republicans in the Senate in line.

The president plans to meet with GOP senators on Tuesday as part of a campaign to placate or outmaneuver conservative Republicans who blocked the measure.

Salazar said discussions over the bill would likely continue.
"Failure on immigration reform is not an option," he said.

GOP Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, who is seeking his party's presidential nomination, said Bush and Salazar were "tone-deaf" on the issue.

"The American people are dead-set against amnesty and no amount of slick repackaging or creative euphemisms are going to change that," said Tancredo, who has made illegal immigration a centerpiece of his underdog presidential campaign.

Salazar said the immigration measure is a law-and-order bill, not an amnesty bill.

He said Colorado will especially suffer without it because its agricultural industry needs more workers, which the bill would have provided.

"For all those farmers and ranchers out in Weld County, down in Lamar and over in Palisade who watch their fruits and their vegetables and their crops staying out in the field ... today (they) should be a little more upset than were yesterday, and they should be clamoring for us to move forward with immigration reform," he said

Salazar said the idea of rounding up the all the illegal workers now in the U.S. is unrealistic because it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.