Senate Panel Approves Immigration Bill

WASHINGTON - Immigrant supporters claimed their first major victory since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks after a bipartisan group of senators approved legislation that would give millions of illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship.
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"It's a big day for us. We may not have a lot of big days, but this is a big day," Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant group, said after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a package of immigration and border security measures Monday.

Restaurant owners, agricultural groups, Democrats and others who had been pushing for a way for immigrants to earn legal permanent residency — the first step to citizenship — also claimed victory.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C. said he hoped
President Bush, who advocates a so-called guest worker program, would participate in efforts to fashion consensus legislation.

The next step is the full Senate, where Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is negotiating with other senators on how to handle the committee's bill and his own proposal, which focuses more on punishing employers who hire undocumented workers.

"The situation along our Southern borders now ranks as a national security challenge, second only to the war on terror," Frist said Monday. "Every day thousands of people violate our frontiers."

Frist said the Senate will begin a debate on immigration later this week with the aim of passing a bill by April 7. The debate will give Americans a glimpse of two candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008: Frist and Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., an architect of the bill approved by the Judiciary Committee.

McCain said the turnouts in the hundreds of thousands — particularly among Hispanics — at recent rallies in Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington helped galvanize support for the bill.

In general, the Judiciary Committee's bill is designed to strengthen enforcement of U.S. borders, regulate the flow into the country of guest workers and determine the legal future of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.

The bill would double the Border Patrol and authorize a "virtual wall" of unmanned vehicles, cameras and sensors to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border. It also would allow more visas for nurses and agriculture workers, and shelter humanitarian organizations from prosecution if they provide non-emergency assistance to illegal residents.

The most contentious provision would permit illegal aliens currently in the country to apply for citizenship without first having to return home, a process that would take at least six years. They would have to pay a fine, learn English, study American civics, demonstrate they had paid their taxes and take their place behind other applicants for citizenship, according to aides to Kennedy, D-Mass., who was instrumental in drafting the legislation.

Kennedy credited the "faith community" for building support for a guest worker program.

The Judiciary Committee also approved a five-year plan to provide visas for about 1.5 million agriculture workers and allow them to eventually seek legal residency.

Recent polls show that about six in 10 Americans oppose letting illegal immigrants remain in the country and apply for citizenship and three of every four don't believe the government is doing enough to stem the continuing tide of new arrivals.

"For years, the government has turned a blind eye to illegal aliens who break into this country," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. Tancredo helped lead the fight for a bill the House passed in December that would define illegal immigrants as felons, build fences across a third of the U.S-Mexican border and enlist local police and the military to help patrol it.

Soon after assuming the presidency, Bush called for measures to provide businesses with a reliable immigrant work force. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks he put aside negotiations with Mexico on a guest worker program. Mexican President
Vicente Fox, with whom Bush meets this week in Cancun, had hoped his friendship with the former Texas governor would lead to legal status for Mexicans working illegally in the U.S.

Any bill produced by the Senate would have to be reconciled with the House measure. Despite Bush's support for letting illegal immigrants with jobs avoid deportation, many Republicans vow to prevent what they say amounts to amnesty from becoming law.

"I will oppose amnesty at all stages," said Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, who was on the losing side of Monday's 12-6 vote by the Judiciary Committee. He said Congress "made a mistake in 1986" by granting amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants "and now we have 12 million."