Washington – On a 239-182 vote, the House passed a bill late Friday cracking down on illegal immigration by ordering employers to check the legal status of their workers and by erecting a fence to block border crossings from Mexico.
The bill now goes to the Senate, which is expected to add some version of President Bush’s guest-worker plan, which would allow some illegal immigrants to stay in the country temporarily to fill jobs.
The House bill’s progress was a victory for Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., an immigration hardliner who heads the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
His outspokenness on the issue has alienated the Republican leadership, but during the debate over the bill, he became a dealmaker.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything like this, the way it has played out,” he said. “We have made enormous strides with this bill, more than I anticipated we could do in this Congress.”
Tancredo said his next step will be pressuring senators to vote for a tough immigration bill without a guest-worker provision.
“Now, we start the victory tour around the country, especially in the states where we need the Senate votes,” said Tancredo, who already has traveled to several states this year in an effort to force the immigration issue into the 2008 presidential contest.
Supporters of the bill said that increased control of the U.S.- Mexico border is vital to ensuring security and that the United States is straining under the burden of an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.
“I think since we have failed to enforce the law, everybody feels victimized, including those who are here illegally,” said Rep. Bob Beauprez, R-Colo.
The bill’s critics, however, called it a xenophobic measure that punishes some of society’s most vulnerable workers in the name of homeland security.
“There is no group of American workers who work harder for less money than illegal immigrants,” said Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va. “They’re willing to walk across miles of desert for jobs that Americans won’t do. We’ve got to respect that.”
The bill’s fate was forecast in procedural votes Thursday and Friday, in which most Republicans voted for the measure.
Tancredo and his allies threatened to derail the bill if guest- worker provisions were included.
The threat worked, and House leaders nixed guest-worker language in a closed-door meeting with members, but it’s likely to be reinserted by the Senate or by the House-Senate conference committee that will work out differences in the bill. The guest- worker plan is advocated by industries that depend on immigrant labor.
“I’m hoping the Senate passes something, then the wrestling match starts,” Beauprez said, adding that the guest-worker issue “is not even close to being resolved.”
The immigration debate has revealed a sharp split within Republican ranks.
GOP conservatives such as Tancredo have defied the party’s usual allies in the business community, who say the bill’s requirement to check workers’ legal status is too much of a burden on employers.
But the bill also exposed divisions in the Democratic Party. When the House voted to build a fence at the border, 49 Democrats voted against their leadership by backing the barrier.
The bill also would order the federal government to employ the personnel and technology needed to secure the border and would end the practice of “catch-and-release” for non- Mexican immigrants.
House leaders blocked a proposal to end the practice of granting automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States.
Staff writer Mike Soraghan can be reached at 202-662-8730 or msoraghan@denverpost.com.
