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    Home arrow News arrow Immigration Reform arrow House, Senate back measures against illegal immigration
    House, Senate back measures against illegal immigration PDF Print E-mail

    By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post  |  September 21, 2006

    WASHINGTON -- The House and the Senate moved yesterday toward a piecemeal crackdown on illegal immigration, pushing forward separate bills to require photo identification to vote, build vast fences on the US-Mexico border, and speed the deportation of undocumented workers. The measures would take the place of President Bush's far broader rewrite of the nation's immigration laws.

    Voting almost completely along party lines, the House voted, 228 to 196, for a bill that would require all who register to vote in federal elections to show photo identification that proves they are US citizens. The Senate, meanwhile, voted, 94 to 0, to take up a measure approved by the House last week to build 700 miles of double-layered fencing on the US-Mexico border, with a final vote to be taken as early as Monday.

    Today, the House will take up bills to speed the deportation of undocumented workers, ratchet up penalties for immigrant gang members and human smugglers, end an exemption from rapid deportation for Salvadoran illegal immigrants, criminalize tunneling under the border, and deputize state and local police officers to enforce federal immigration laws.

    In an interview on CNN, Bush said he would sign the measures, even though they do not embrace a more comprehensive approach -- including a guest-worker program -- that he has backed.

    ``Yes, I'll sign it into law," Bush said. ``I would view this as an interim step; I don't view this as a final product."

     

     

    Approval of the measures would permit leaders of the Republican-controlled Congress to contend that they have taken steps to deal with the flood of illegal immigrants. The issue spawned huge demonstrations in many cities in the spring and has called into question the Republican Party's ability to face tough issues. GOP leaders also say they believe that the hardening of legislative lines on illegal immigration and border security will bolster the party's conservative political support before midterm elections.

    ``Border security is national security," declared David Dreier, Republican of California and the House Rules Committee chairman, with House GOP leaders by his side. ``We're going to try our daggonest to enact as many of these bills as we can."

    With little more than a week left before the Sept. 29 start of Congress's scheduled recess, GOP leaders are considering whether to append some or all of the bills to must-pass spending measures. But Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi and the Senate Appropriations Committee chairman, appeared to close off that avenue last night, saying he will not add any legislative language onto the spending bills that could slow their progress before the coming recess.

    The sudden rush of activity startled immigrant and civil rights groups, which had largely thought a legislative response on immigration was dead for the year. 

    © Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
     
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