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Taking immigration issue on a road show

BY TOM BRUNE | WASHINGTON BUREAU

July 5, 2006

WASHINGTON - Congress takes its fight over immigration legislation on the road this week as leaders of the House and Senate back in the capital work to clear the way for difficult negotiations over their two distinctly different approaches.

The gulf between the bills passed by each of the two chambers of Congress will be highlighted tomorrow in field hearings on opposite sides of the country, 2,700 miles apart.

In San Diego, a House subcommittee will underscore its bill's exclusive focus on tightening border security and interior enforcement with a hearing titled "Border Vulnerabilities and International Terrorism. "

In Philadelphia, a Senate committee will promote its bill's accommodation of undocumented workers with guest worker and citizenship programs in a hearing called "Examining the Need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. "

These are the first of what could be as many as a dozen hearings, most of them initiated by a House GOP intent on killing the Senate approach. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) responded by scheduling field hearings to boost the Senate bill.

Immigrant advocates say the House hearings are an attempt to stall the legislation.

With the House and Senate so far apart, advocates on both sides have declared immigration legislation dead, at least until after the midterm elections. Despite those dire predictions, some top Republicans spoke optimistically last week.

"After the House finishes its hearings, we will begin the vital work of crafting a final bill," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).

That hope arose from incremental moves in the back corridors of the Capitol last week. One was a resolution to a parliamentary glitch that blocked the two versions of the legislation from going to conference, and the other was the bubbling up of a possible compromise.

Under it, any guest worker or citizenship provisions would kick in only after the border is certified as secure.

That proposal was rejected by the Senate in May but was touted again last week by hardline Republican senators.

One of the Senate bill's cosponsors, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), remains open but wary about that idea. "It's a bit of a straw man to say, 'Certify that the border is sealed,' " McCain said on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday. "The Israelis just found out there's no such thing as a sealed border. "

Democrats, meanwhile, said no bill will be passed unless the GOP resolves its internal clash.

"The president must stand up to the right wing of his party," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev. )

Instead of softening their position, House Republicans appeared to be digging in and further politicizing the issue.

Last week, for example, House Republican Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) began to call the Senate legislation - often known as the McCain-Kennedy bill, after its sponsors McCain and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) - the Reid-Kennedy bill.

Boehner predicted that the House hearings on the road would lead to success.

"I'm frankly optimistic that, with what we're planning to do over the next several months, we will have more momentum toward the House position," he said, "and a bill."