Immigration bills, aimed at sealing border, pass House
Nicole Gaouette
Los Angeles Times
Sep 22, 2006
The House yesterday approved three new bills targeting illegal immigration, including one that would make it a crime to tunnel underneath U.S. borders and another that would make it easier to deport gang members who are not citizens.
The action followed House approval last week of a proposed 700-mile fence along the border with Mexico - legislation the Senate is now debating - and passage earlier this week of a bill meant to prevent illegal immigrants from voting.
The measures stem from the push by House Republican leaders for the federal government to focus on securing the nation's borders before dealing with other immigration-related issues.
House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R., Ohio) hailed yesterday's action as evidence that GOP lawmakers "are serious about securing our border and enforcing our law." He said the bills could be on President Bush's desk "in a matter of weeks."
But a key GOP senator, Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, cast doubt on the prospects of the House measures, questioning the wisdom of enacting enforcement-oriented legislation without grappling with the citizenship status of illegal immigrants in the United States or calls by the business community for a guest-worker program.
"I don't see how we can deal with the immigration issue on a piecemeal basis," said Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A majority of senators have supported the more sweeping rewrite of immigration policy endorsed by President Bush. And Specter expressed concern that House leaders would have little incentive to negotiate other immigration-related matters in the future "if we take care of all of their priorities and none of the Senate's."
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, emphasized their opposition to the House approach at an annual Capitol Hill summit with Hispanic leaders.
"Republicans claim to be on the side of Hispanics," said Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), "but their record doesn't match their rhetoric."
The decision by House Republicans to back border security and stronger enforcement of existing immigration laws while eschewing talks over establishing a guest-worker program or creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is in part designed to motivate the party's conservative base in an election year.
The question among political analysts in both parties is whether the strategy could earn the GOP short-term gains in November at the expense of the party's longer term fortunes. Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population and are expected to be about one-quarter of the population by 2050.
Most of the legislation that cleared the House yesterday had been approved previously by the chamber as part of a single bill passed in December.
One of the new measures would authorize the indefinite detention of some illegal immigrants, which would overturn two Supreme Court decisions declaring that practice unlawful. The bill also would bar gang members from entering the country and allow the Department of Homeland Security to quickly deport noncitizens if it believed they were gang members.
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