Senate OKs fence on Mexican border

WASHINGTON – The Senate overwhelmingly approved a measure Wednesday to build at least 370 miles of double- and triple-layered fences along the Mexico border, moving its immigration bill closer to the enforcement-focused approach favored by conservatives.

While parts of the California and Texas border are already fenced, the provision would replace and extend fencing along the Arizona border where illegal crossings have surged to the nation’s highest levels.

Should the illegal entries shift to other places, the measure authorizes fence construction in “areas that are most used by smugglers.” It also calls for erecting 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the entire Southwest border.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., sponsor of the provision, said that building the fencing would send “a signal to the world that our border is not open, it is closed.”

Some senators questioned the cost – an estimated $1 billion – and the implications of Sessions’ measure. It was added as an amendment to the immigration bill the Senate has been debating on-and-off for more than a month.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., warned that the proposal would be “a down-payment for a fence of 2,000 miles (the entire length of the U.S.-Mexico border). That would be the end result.”

He also expressed concern that the fencing would sour relations with Mexico.

The amendment passed, 83-16.

The vote came as President Bush travels today to Arizona to promote his plan to use 6,000 National Guard troops to help border patrol agents in the effort to stem illegal immigration.

The fence amendment was one of several added to the Senate legislation Wednesday that may improve the chances that Congress can reach agreement on a bill to overhaul U.S. immigration policy and send it to Bush for his signature.

The president, in a nationally televised speech Monday, put the prestige of his office behind the broad rewriting of immigration policy that the Senate is pursuing. Along with border-security measures, the Senate bill contains legalization provisions for most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now in the U.S. and a temporary guest worker program – proposals Bush has endorsed.

But Republicans who control the House have said they are reluctant to back a measure that goes beyond toughening border security. A core of the GOP House members is adamantly opposed to any path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, castigating such plans as “amnesty” for lawbreakers.

Bush and others dispute that categorization, noting that the Senate legislation includes financial penalties for illegal immigrants seeking U.S. citizenship.

Another of the amendments the Senate added to its bill that has potential appeal to conservatives would decrease by an estimated 500,000 the number of illegal immigrants who could pursue U.S. citizenship.

Under this amendment, the citizenship provision would not apply to those illegal immigrants who have been convicted of felonies, repeatedly committed misdemeanors or skipped hearings on their deportation.

A third amendment adopted Wednesday would tighten restrictions in the bill’s temporary worker program. It would require the Department of Labor to certify that there is not a U.S. worker who is able, willing, qualified and available to fill the job that is offered to a foreign worker. It passed, 50-48, in a vote that split largely down party lines.

Even as these changes gave the bill a more conservative slant, the Senate stood by the multipronged approach to immigration reform by easily defeating an amendment to delete the measure’s legalization provisions.

As the Senate debate proceeded, immigrant advocates, their opponents and White House officials headed to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to try to make their case.

Senior White House political adviser Karl Rove met privately on Capitol Hill with several House Republicans to press Bush’s views. But Rove’s efforts appeared to make little headway.

“He left with his hat in his hand,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said.

An immigration bill the House passed in December includes provisions to build a 700-mile fence along the border, require employers to verify with the government the legal residency status of their workers and make illegal presence in the U.S. a felony. The latter measure helped spark massive protest marches earlier this year in several cities; House leaders have indicted they would be willing to drop it during talks with the Senate on a final bill.

Currently, an estimated 80 to 100 miles of fencing stretches across the southwest border, including a barrier at San Diego and double- and triple-layered chain-link fences – crowned with barbed wire – that separate El Paso, Texas, from Mexico.

The House bill would build fences in high-traffic corridors and envisions a largely continuous fence stretching 392 miles from Calexico, Calif., to Douglas, Ariz. A second portion would extend 305 miles through Texas from Laredo to Brownsville.