YUMA, ARIZ. — President Bush unveiled the basics of his latest immigration proposal Monday, a mix of tougher border enforcement and a complicated path to legal status for illegal immigrants that the White House hopes can break the congressional deadlock over the thorny issue.
"It's important that we get a bill done," Bush said at a Border Patrol station, asking Congress to send legislation to his desk this year.
He launched a similar initiative in a nationally televised speech 11 months ago but, despite support from most Democrats, was stymied by fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill. Whether he can help steer passage of a bill this year looms as a major test of his clout in Congress in the latter half of his last term.
Although the president was vague about the details of his new effort, proposals being discussed among White House officials and GOP lawmakers seem designed to bring recalcitrant Republicans aboard.
For instance, one plan would require illegal immigrants wishing to remain in the United States to return to their country of origin first and pay a $10,000 fine to obtain a three-year work visa. The visas would be renewable, at a cost of $3,500. Also, illegal immigrants who were in the U.S. before June 1, 2006, who paid various fees and fines and who met other criteria, including learning English, eventually could seek to become citizens.
These conditions for visas and citizenship are more stringent than provisions in a Bush-supported bill that the Senate passed last year. But it remains uncertain whether tougher conditions will overcome the objections of those who consider it amnesty to provide any path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Bush said in his Monday speech -- as he has throughout the immigration debate -- that he opposed amnesty, which he defined as "the forgiveness of an offense without penalty."
He said he was working with the Democrats who now control Congress and Republicans "to find a practical answer that lies between granting automatic citizenship to every illegal immigrant and deporting every illegal immigrant."
Deportation, he added, is "just an impractical position; it's not going to work. It may sound good; it may make nice sound bite news -- it won't happen."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and top Senate Democrats, such as Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, have told the White House that they cannot pass a bill relying almost exclusively on Democratic votes. That forces the administration to work for Republican support.
