House OKs three bills targeting illegal immigration

WASHINGTON – The House on Thursday approved three new bills targeting illegal immigration, including one that would make it a crime to tunnel underneath U.S. borders and another making 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 border before dealing with other immigration-related issues.

House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, hailed Thursday’s bills as evidence that GOP lawmakers “are serious about securing our border and enforcing our law.”

One of the new measures would authorize the indefinite detention of some illegal immigrants, a move that would overturn two Supreme Court decisions declaring that practice unlawful. The bill would also bar gang members from entering the country and allow the Department of Homeland Security to quickly deport noncitizens if it believes they are gang members. The vote in favor of the measure was 328-95.

A second bill would speed the ability of immigration officers to deport people and limit their access to appeal. It would strip people from El Salvador of a special immigration status that has protected many of them from deportation. And it would affirm the right of state and local law enforcement to help enforce federal immigration laws. It passed 277-140.

The third bill would impose a 20-year prison sentence on anyone who digs a tunnel under a U.S. border. People who permit tunnel construction on their property would earn a 10-year sentence. The bill was approved unanimously, 422-0.

Boehner said the bills could be on President Bush’s desk “in a matter of weeks.”

But a key GOP senator 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 U.S. or calls by business for a guest-worker program.

“I don’t see how we can deal with the immigration issue on a piecemeal basis,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A majority of senators has 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.”