Washington – Plans supported by President Bush and being weighed by the U.S. Senate to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants are wrong-headed, and the nation should instead enforce tough border controls and crack down on people living illegally in the United States, House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Sunday.
Even if the Senate were to combine a guest-worker program with increased border security – a hard-fought compromise on such a measure collapsed Friday – Boehner warned that such a plan would place “the cart before the horse.”
“I’m for securing the borders and enforcing the laws,” Boehner said on ABC’s “This Week.” “Until we do that, if you try to create a guest-worker program, all you’re doing is inviting more illegal immigration.”
The House has already passed a tough measure that basically calls for capturing and deporting millions of illegal immigrants – a measure that has drawn nationwide protests from immigrant-rights groups.
Latinos are planning the biggest-ever nationwide rally of immigrants today, a 60-city extravaganza that leaders say will attract millions of participants.
The proposal by House Republicans has generated intense anger in many Latino, Asian and African communities, and become a potent political issue in an election year, as politicians try to balance the growing influence of Latino voters in local and national politics against a possible conservative backlash.
The Senate will return to the issue in a couple of weeks and again try to craft a compromise, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on “Fox News Sunday.”
The Senate plan that collapsed Friday sought to divide undocumented workers into three groups, setting those who had already been in the United States for long periods of time on a path to citizenship.
The plan called for penalties on those who entered the country illegally, but Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., a major proponent of tougher controls and sanctions, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the penalties were trivial.
Boehner and Tancredo said Sunday that placing undocumented workers on the path to citizenship was basically an amnesty and would send a terrible message to legal immigrants in the United States and aspiring immigrants in other countries.
