Bush, Reid battle over immigration
WASHINGTON – Engaging in partisan political warfare, President Bush and the Senate Democratic leader blamed each other Saturday for the Senate’s failure to pass legislation to overhaul immigration laws.
Bush used his weekly radio address to thrust himself into the thick of the immigration battle, accusing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada of obstructing the bipartisan compromise announced Thursday. Bush called on Reid to end his “blocking tactics” on the reform bill, which stalled Friday.
“We should … conduct the debate on immigration reform in a manner worthy of our nation’s best traditions,” Bush said. “To keep the promise of America, we must remain a welcoming society and also enforce the laws that make our freedom possible.”
Reid lashed back, accusing Bush of failing to provide the leadership necessary to overcome conservative Republicans’ antipathy toward the Senate compromise.
“It was President Bush and Republicans in Congress who lacked the backbone to stand up to the extreme right wing of their party,” Reid said in a statement.
The comments added to the increasingly partisan tone surrounding immigration reform, which has emerged as an important issue for both parties going into mid-term elections later this year.
Immigration advocates now fear that both Republicans and Democrats will use the debate over immigration to score political points, rather than seek a comprehensive reform this year.
Senate Democrats and Republicans appeared together at a news conference Thursday to celebrate a deal that included provisions to toughen enforcement of immigration laws but also would create a path to citizenship for most of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.
Less than 24 hours later, the bipartisan agreement fell apart when Reid demanded that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., limit amendments that other senators could offer on the Senate floor. Reid also insisted that Frist draw on Judiciary Committee members, who are thought to be more moderate than Senate Republicans as a whole, to work with the House on a compromise bill.
Frist refused, saying such conditions were an unwarranted imposition on the majority party’s prerogatives.
Without such restrictions in place, Democrats said they feared that Republicans would scuttle the Senate compromise and produce a hard-line measure similar to the House-passed bill, which would authorize a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border and make it a crime to assist persons in this country illegally. House Republicans have opposed granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants.
The legislative rollercoaster alarmed immigrant advocates, who feared that the bitter, bruising fight might have doomed the possibility of a comprehensive reform package until after mid-term elections this fall.
Several activists agreed on Saturday that Bush’s leadership over the coming weeks could prove key to the bill’s fortunes. The Senate is in recess for two weeks and mass demonstrations are expected across the country on Monday.