Immigration Bill Is on Hiatus With the Senate

By Maura Reynolds and Nicole Gaouette

April 8, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON — The Senate’s immigration overhaul effort ground to a halt Friday and lawmakers departed for a two-week recess, leaving the legislation’s fate in doubt and a decision on whether to move millions of illegal workers to legal status unsettled.

Both sides in the debate said that any future progress may depend in large part on events over the next several weeks -- particularly large-scale street protests scheduled for coming days in Washington, Los Angeles and other cities.

“I think the demonstrations that occurred in the past have been noticed,” said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), co-author of the compromise Senate proposal. But he said that some lawmakers were offended by protesters waving Mexican flags and that he hoped the upcoming demonstrations would not be “divisive.”

“I think it’s fine for people to express themselves, but if what this is about is the opportunity to be an American and being a resident of America and working in America and ultimately being a citizen of America, they need to be carrying American flags,” Martinez said.

Both sides expressed a determination to press ahead when Congress returns, but neither side proposed a way to break the deadlock.

“We had an agreement. That agreement would have gotten 65 to 70 votes, and that’s not going away,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading supporter of providing illegal workers a path to legal status. “Our group is rededicated to pursuing this legislation to its conclusion.”

Republicans blamed the impasse on Democrats, accusing them of not permitting debate on amendments to the compromise proposal. Democrats blamed Republicans, accusing them of offering amendments that might completely alter the legislation.

“Talk to the Democrats,” said Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). “We had a solution in hand. They thwarted it.”

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) countered, “There is a very strong faction in the Republican Party that doesn’t want to see a bill.”

Beneath the rhetoric was a complicated political equation. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was in the unusual position of pushing an immigration bill that did not have the support of a clear majority of the chamber’s 55 Republicans. As a result, he was dependent on cooperation with the body’s 44 Democrats.

Democrats largely supported the bill but were deeply suspicious of Republicans. In particular, they were concerned that Republicans might cave in later in the process and allow the Senate version of the bill to be subsumed into a more punitive measure passed last year by the House.

“In the end, it came down to trust,” said a senior Democratic leadership aide who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing senators’ thinking on the issue. “Democrats have ample examples to draw from where Republicans have not held true in conference or on the floor.”

The House bill, shepherded by House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), focuses on border security and immigrant smuggling. It would make it a felony to be in the United States without a valid visa and would also make it a felony to offer humanitarian assistance to an illegal immigrant.

Democrats said they feared that during negotiations over the bill’s final form, Sensenbrenner would squeeze out the Senate’s legalization program or make other drastic changes.

And they said they had a hard time relying on Frist’s commitment to the compromise legislation because the majority leader had previously expressed a preference for an enforcement-first approach closer to that of the House bill. They also noted that Frist is expected to run for president in 2008 and will need support from conservatives.

Negotiations continued Friday but did not result in progress as the two sides bogged down in procedural disputes. Aides to Frist said that the first item on the Senate agenda two weeks from now was likely to be emergency funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- making it unlikely that debate on immigration would resume before early May.

Some supporters of the Senate compromise legislation expressed optimism that the intervening weeks might build pressure, especially on Republicans in the House, who largely have supported Sensenbrenner’s bill.

“I hope the next two weeks we can use to educate and inform and bring more support behind” the Senate legislation, said Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.). “I don’t think anyone believes it’s an easy cause.”

Each side in the Senate accused the other of secretly trying to sink the bill for political gain. Republicans said Democrats hoped Latinos would see the Sensenbrenner bill as the Republican position on immigration. Democrats accused Republicans of a weak commitment to the compromise legislation that ultimately would give way to demands for a more hard-line approach.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said an additional problem was that Senate deliberations on the bill had been too rushed.

“I think when you force a march on a bill this controversial, you run into problems,” she said. “You have people who want this thing to fail because they want an issue in the fall” during election season.

Feinstein declined to say whether she was referring to Democrats or Republicans.

Tom Snyder, political director of the UNITE HERE labor union, warned both sides against manipulating immigrants.

“The Hispanic vote is not nearly as reliable” as people think, Snyder said. “It’s increasingly a swing vote, and if Democrats treat this issue as a spectator sport and can sit back and watch, there’s going to be a very bad result. Immigrants aren’t stupid.”

Times staff writer Richard Simon in Washington contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The immigrant population

Illegal immigration increased rapidly in the late 1990s and the first years of this decade, with as many as 12 million undocumented immigrants estimated to be in the U.S. as of last month.

Number of illegal immigrants

(In millions)

January 1982: 3.3

March 2006: 11.5 to 12

Where they came from

Mexico: 56%

Rest of Latin America: 22%

Asia: 13%

Europe and Canada: 6%

Other: 3%

When they arrived in the U.S.

2000 to 2005: 40%