WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans and administration officials concerned about the impasse over immigration policy have launched aggressive efforts to bridge the divide between House and Senate legislation on the issue.
The approach includes promoting steps the White House has taken to secure the border -- an attempt to reassure conservatives who argue that enforcement measures must have priority -- while insisting, as President Bush does, that a successful overhaul of immigration laws must go beyond stacking more barbed wire along the U.S. frontier with Mexico and closing the job market for undocumented workers.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday August 13, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 37 words Type of Material: Correction
Immigration overhaul: A Section A article July 26 about a proposal by two Republicans that would open a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants misspelled the name of Arizona's senator. It is Jon Kyl, not John Kyl.
In one potentially key development Tuesday, two opponents of the Senate bill, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), unveiled a proposal meant to pave the way for a compromise.
Their plan would open a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, but only after U.S. borders were declared sufficiently secure. At that point, illegal immigrants would be required to leave the U.S. to be processed for work visas before returning to the country. After 17 years, they would be eligible for citizenship.
"We're concerned that there's not enough dialogue between the two houses to try to ... start the discussion," said Hutchison, who described the proposal as an attempt to combine the priorities of both chambers.
House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) called the proposal "a step in the right direction," although he avoided commenting on the plan's citizenship provision.
The Hutchison-Pence proposal came a day after two conservative Republican senators from border states recommended that Bush request more than $3.5 billion in emergency funding for security provisions, including fences along the Mexico border. The two lawmakers, John Cornyn of Texas and John Kyl of Arizona, said the money request would be a "credibility-building measure."
"The logjam between the House and the Senate is not going to be broken until constituents ... are convinced that we mean business" on the enforcement front, Kyl said.
Cornyn predicted that passage of the funding request would make House members "more likely to support comprehensive immigration reform."
Administration officials have sought to raise comfort levels by emphasizing border security measures underway and the need for a sweeping restructuring of the immigration system.
