Posted on 04/13/2005 3:32:48 PM PDT by Conservative Firster
WASHINGTON, April 12 - Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, said on Tuesday that he was discouraging efforts to incorporate immigration and border security measures into the Senate version of a supplemental military spending bill, which would set the stage for showdowns among Congressional Republicans over immigration later this year.
Meeting with reporters, Dr. Frist, of Tennessee, said, "I am encouraging my colleagues to defer, to postpone discussions of immigration and to postpone that debate."
He said, however, that he was still negotiating with senators who seek to add immigration provisions to the military spending bill.
The House version of the bill includes provisions to block illegal immigrants from obtaining standard driver's licenses, to make it easier to reject requests for asylum and to override environmental rules blocking construction of a barrier along California's border with Mexico.
Senators from each party seek to add amendments that would make it easier for employers to hire more foreign workers.
The immigration debate reveals a fault line in the Republican Party, pitting cultural conservatives hostile to illegal immigrants against business groups that seek foreign laborers. President Bush has declared his support for a guest-worker program that would be open to currently illegal immigrants.
On Tuesday, Dr. Frist called immigration "a huge issue, an issue that we have to address this year, that the president put a proposal on the table last year - legislatively, we did not address it - I believe we have to address this year."
House Republicans, however, said that negotiators in a conference last year promised that the provisions would be included in some "must-pass" legislation, like the supplemental military spending bill. In negotiations with the Senate, House Republicans added, they were determined to keep the provisions in the final version of the bill.
Senate Democrats want to offer a number of amendments seeking to loosen immigration restrictions or expand foreign-workers programs. Dr. Frist and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, were in talks on Tuesday night about whether to limit the number of immigration amendments to a handful, with some Democrats seeking assurances that the final bill would not include the House's immigration restrictions, aides said.
Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, and Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, said they planned to offer an amendment that would make more visas available for temporary seasonal workers, which they said would be needed by the hotel and fishing industries this summer.
Meanwhile, two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona, advocating the tightening of border security along the lines of the House measures, said they also favored deferring the immigration debate in the Senate and enacting comprehensive measures that would also include some form of Mr. Bush's guest-worker program.
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a conservative strategist working with the White House on its guest-worker proposal, predicted that each side would ultimately succeed only through comprehensive legislation that tightens border security and at the same time adds foreign workers to the labor pool. "Immigration reform and border security are not competitors; they are the same thing," he said.
He said he believed that the House Republican opponents of the guest-worker program would "get boxed out by a bipartisan coalition," and that Mr. Bush could achieve his guest-worker program mostly through strong Democratic support.
You're funny!
see reply #70 and if you read the rest of the article you would see that two of the most conservative Senators, Cornyn and Kyl, agreed with Frist, but nooooooooooo, people on FR have to go into instant knee jerk betrayal mode.
Risk you are funny to, because your modern Northern Ireland rhetoric has no place in America.
I'm probably a minority on this thread but I actually agree with you for once Dane, I think what Frist is doing is making Sensenbrenner's bill more likely to pass while keeping the amnesty provisions out. If he stops them in the future as well that would be even better.
I would feel right at home on either side of Belfast. You're oversimplifying.
Thanks a lot.
Although McCain, Kennedy, Cannon, amd Turner are credited with AgJobs, they didn't actually compose it.
They wrote it around a negotiated compromise between the growers and the unions. A small group of the largest growers, on behalf of Agribusiness and the AFL-CIO/United Farm Workers on behalf of the lawyers, civil rights groups, clergy, and ID groups. You may have seen the list of 400 groups supporting AgJobs that was released shortly after the bill was introduced.
I suspect that this new McCain-Kennedy has had a lot of imput from constituent groups. If it gets attached, look for an even larger list of supporting groups.
Those are more like lobby groups than constituents. I bet if they went to the man on the street and asked him what he thought of a massive amnesty for illegal aliens the reponse would be a 180 degrees different.
I'll tell you what's keeping more amnesties from sailing through: it's the success of Prop 200 in Arizona and conservative talk show hosts who are firing up the base on this issue.
Open borders Grover is full of it, we're not seeing much the next four years but a lot of hot air as far as guest worker programs go.
Meanwhile, two Republican senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona, advocating the tightening of border security along the lines of the House measures, said they also favored deferring the immigration debate in the Senate and enacting comprehensive measures that would also include some form of Mr. Bush's guest-worker program."
GOOD FOR THEM. THE RIGHT APPROACH.
Frist once again is playing the weak-sister... man, it's almost like those extra conservatives we sent up there (COburn etc.) arent making a difference. What gives?
Bush's biggest mistake to date....right there in plain sight.
Amen.
"BTW, I was watching C-span 2 today and I think what Frist is doing is trying to remove any amendment having to do with illegal immigration/amnesty from the supplemental bill for money for the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq---
I know that the House added an amendment by Sensenbrenner re: immigrants not getting drivers licenses--I think that they are saying that that amendment pertains more to "security" than immigration reform, which is what the amendments in the Senate deal with----"
This stuff was put in a House bill *Last year*, in the 9-11 commission bill, and the Bush white house didnt want it in there and got it taken out; and the House got an agreement to get the stuff added in a later bill. well, here we are ... now the Senate is backpedalling ... NOT good.
Also not good if the Senate has enough votes to let the mischeivous Senate amendments from the liberals pass.
"I will say one thing if and when they finally do get around to an immigration reform bill---there will be FIREWORKS, and it is gonna be FUN to watch---frustrating too, I bet."
Yup. Hide the kids... it's not a pretty process. But we have to fix immigration and do it RIGHT and do it SOON. The problem is getting bigger every year.
Thank You.
We are being betrayed by folks we worked hard to get elected.
LOL...precisely what I said to said poster.
"The reason a Republican bill won't pass is not the Democrats. The problem is Tancredo and the rest of the idiots in his little clique will not let anything pass unless he can claim credit for the bill and declare himself to be the "savior of the western world" as his followers tell him he is. After all, he needs his worshipers to keep stroking his ego and sending those monthly donations."
Nonsense, this is not even the Tancredo bill at issue, it is amendments that Sensenbrenner got put in; it's not the House that is unsure of itself, but the Senate. Your comments are simply off-target.
The real reason we cant get a good bill out is simply that Republicans are not united. Don't blame Tancredo, there is a cheap labor lobby which has an interest in either illegal immigration or some substitute (aka unlimited guest workers/amnesty etc). Those interests collide with the interests of working Americans who might prefer to have less cheap labor, but save in (a) less taxes, less overburdened services like schools and hospitals, less crime, lower social costs, etc., and better wages for low-end workers.
In the end a compromise will be needed.
Actually....and I tried to tell the wolfpacks here when Lott was sacrificed at the altar of political correctness by W and Rove adn before his groveling became so shameful.....Lott could bring in the votes far better than Frist ever dreamed of.
and mostly with a triangulating Dem president.
Amen ...on DeLay.....we need a Tom DeLay emporer actually.
I'd give him a 5 year turn
Tancredo hasnt split the party - a divergence in interests between pro-high-immigration big business and anti-immigration little guys has.
Bush also thinks that contrary to generations of statistics that he can turn the Hispanic vote which with the exception of the tried and true Cubanos and some sub groups here and there tends to trend Entitlement year after year.
W need only smell the smoke coming from most of their leaders....La Raza, Mecha etc
But he doesn't. Karl and he are drinking rainmaker water and we are all going to pay for their naivete.
The coming demographics are going to make it impossible for even NeoCons to win.
you're on a roll.
no kidding....like that DP would like Tancredo otherwise.
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