Dueling Immigration Ideas Frame a Key Election Issue

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats, playing catch-up with President Bush's guest-worker proposal, plan to introduce an immigration reform bill Tuesday that would put millions of illegal immigrants on the path to citizenship but restrict the entry of future workers.

The Democratic plan would offer green cards and permanent resident status to all immigrants who have been in the United States at least five years, can prove they have worked at least 24 months and have passed background and medical checks. It also would loosen quotas that keep many immigrants from bringing relatives into the United States.

The Democrats' proposal, coupled with the Bush plan, would frame the election-year debate on a politically sensitive issue. In many parts of the country, and especially in swing states such as Florida and New Mexico, both parties are courting immigrant constituencies.

The two proposals take sharply different approaches: The Democrats would make it harder to import so-called guest workers but would open the path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country; Bush would allow illegal immigrants to become legal temporary workers, but without a promise of green cards or citizenship.

The Los Angeles Times obtained a detailed summary of the Democratic bill, which was drafted by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.).

The bill is an effort to recapture a traditionally Democratic issue from President Bush, who got out in front by proposing a new guest-worker plan that would allow as many as 12 million illegal immigrants to obtain temporary legal status.

"It's political tit for tat," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. "The Democrats have been working on immigration for quite a while, and they cannot afford to have the president one-up them on it."

Latinos generally have voted Democratic in the past, but Republicans see an opportunity to make inroads. Polls have shown that Latino voters, while skeptical, are receptive to Bush's immigration plan. It won the endorsement of Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Republicans hope to increase their share of the Latino vote in November.

Release of the Democratic blueprint is planned for the eve of Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican patriotic observance commemorating the 1862 defeat of French invaders at the Battle of Puebla.