Washington – Congress should take tough steps to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, House Republicans agreed Tuesday, while putting off the issue of whether undocumented workers already in the country should be given a path toward legal status.
A Republicans-only forum on border security confirmed the House’s rejection of the Senate approach of combining enhanced border security with creation of a guest-worker program and a means for illegal immigrants to move toward legal status.
“The state of our borders is a security crisis,” said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., at the meeting of GOP leaders and committee chairmen. Americans, he said, want “immediate, targeted legislation specifically designed to secure the border, protect our homeland and vigorously enforce our immigration laws.”
The purpose of the forum was to share results from 22 hearings that Republicans held in 13 states during the August recess to press the importance of the border-security issue. The House GOP initiated the hearings as it became apparent that compromise with the Senate on a more comprehensive bill was not likely to clear Congress this year.
Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Fla., chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, is charged with putting together legislation in the coming weeks. It was unclear whether the final product would be a standalone bill or be attached to a spending bill that Congress must pass this year.
But House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a news conference Tuesday that “we will send President Bush a series of border initiatives this year.” He said areas that must be addressed include more border-patrol agents, additional fencing along the border, stricter enforcement of immigration laws, and enhanced state and local law-enforcement authority.
House Rules Committee chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., pushed for a counterfeit-proof Social Security card.
Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, spoke of a $5.5 billion Homeland Security Department contract to be awarded this fall that would “essentially prevent penetration” within five years through a combination of electronic surveillance, unmanned aerial surveillance and patrols.
Democrats dismissed the August hearings, saying that as long as there is a demand for foreign labor, the security-only approach wouldn’t work.
