Immigration coalition survives Senate test

WASHINGTON – A fragile Senate coalition backing a broad restructuring of the nation’s immigration laws survived its first legislative test Tuesday, beating back efforts to gut provisions to grant millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and hundreds of thousands of foreigners a new guest-worker permit.

But President Bush’s efforts to win House conservatives to his immigration proposals still faced an uphill climb. A day after a prime-time televised address to the nation, Bush continued to make his case Tuesday that immigration legislation must be comprehensive – tightening control of the borders, offering a new temporary guest-worker visa to foreign workers and offering most illegal immigrants a path to lawful employment and citizenship.

“In order for us to solve the problem of an immigration system that’s not working, it’s really important for Congress to understand … that the elements I described all go hand-in-hand,” Bush said during a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

But House Republicans, who passed legislation last year to crack down on illegal immigration without offering new avenues to legal employment, were not budging.

“I understand what the president’s position is. I have made it pretty clear that I have supported the House position,” said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

The legislative action in the Senate, coupled with the response to Bush’s speech in the House, underscored how difficult it will be for Congress to produce a compromise that can reach the president’s desk. With conservative activists including National Review editors and Rush Limbaugh lambasting the speech, the White House dispatched Vice President Dick Cheney to calm the party’s base.

In a radio interview on Limbaugh’s nationwide radio show, Cheney said the White House is well aware of “legitimate concerns out there on the part of a lot of folks” and is moving quickly to address them.

In the Senate, the bipartisan coalition appears to be holding behind broad-based legislation that would tighten border controls, create a new guest-worker program and offer illegal immigrants who have been in the country at least five years a legal work permit and a path to citizenship. Undocumented workers who have been here for more then two years but less than five would have to return to a border crossing to receive a temporary work permit, then apply for a green card. Illegal immigrants who have been here for less than two years would have to return home.

Senators voted 55 to 40 to kill an amendment, offered by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., that would have prohibited the implementation of any guest-worker program for illegal immigrants until the homeland security secretary certified that the bill’s border security provisions were fully funded and operational.

Supporters called it a “common sense approach” that would have avoided a repeat of a 1986 amnesty program that legalized millions of undocumented workers but failed to secure the border. But opponents said it would effectively kill the compromise by putting off the guest-worker programs for years.

Senators both for and against the immigration bill expressed confidence that the bill would be passed by the end of next week.

But the Senate’s progress appeared only to entrench Republican opposition in the House.

At least 73 House Republicans have signed a letter saying they will never accept any plan that offers legal work and citizenship to undocumented workers, and House Republican leadership aides said that number is likely to climb.