Bush Joins Migration Fray

WASHINGTON (WP) December, 24, 2004 - President Bush plans to kick off his re-election year by proposing a program that would make it easier for immigrants to work legally in the United States, in what would constitute the most significant changes to immigration law in 18 years, Republican officials said Tuesday.

Lobbyists working with the White House said Bush is developing a plan that would allow immigrants to cross the border legally if jobs were waiting for them. The sources said the administration also wants to provide a way for some undocumented workers in the United States to move toward legal status.

White House aides refused to provide details of the proposal, but the Republican officials said it draws on a bill introduced by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would create a Web-based electronic job registry, to be run by the Labor Department. Employers would post job opportunities, which would be available first to U.S. workers and then to prospective immigrants, who would then be allowed to come under a new visa for temporary workers.

Arizona Republican Reps. Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake have introduced a companion bill in the House.

Bush will try to make the plan more palatable to conservatives by including stricter entry controls, including increased use of technology at the border, and steps toward better enforcement of current visa restrictions and reporting requirements, sources said.

He said at his year-end news conference last week that he was preparing to send Congress recommendations for an "immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee." He said he is "firmly against blanket amnesty," or a mass legalization. An estimated 8 million undocumented people live in the United States. At least half of them are Mexican, authorities said.

In addition to the McCain proposal, the other half of the program would be what Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge referred to earlier this month as "some kind of legal status" for undocumented workers in this country. The sources said White House officials were more reticent about this idea than about the temporary worker program, but they concluded that they needed a response to the large population of undocumented workers for the plan to be credible and for Bush to get credit from Hispanic voters.

The blueprint is the most ambitious since a bill signed by President Reagan in 1986 that offered legal status to undocumented immigrants who had moved to the United States before 1982 and imposed sanctions on employers who knowingly hired them.

The White House plan is being designed by Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove, in consultation with the domestic-policy staff. Sources said the White House's biggest concern is that the new mechanism not penalize people who had followed the law and reward those who had not. McCain's plan tries to mitigate that problem by creating a new type of visa for previously undocumented workers who would be allowed to live in the United States legally for three years. Then, the workers could apply for the temporary worker visa, which would be the path to a green card, or legal permanent residency. That would amount to a three-year advantage for those who entered legally.

The Republican officials said that rather than proposing specific legislation, Bush may issue broad principles that would become a part of the "compassion agenda" for his campaign. McCain's legislation applies to all immigrants, not just Mexicans.

Administration officials said Bush will present his proposal, which is being refined, in the second week of January, shortly before traveling to Monterrey, Mexico, for a two-day summit of leaders from the Americas.

Some conservative lawmakers remain opposed to any changes that could be portrayed as pro-immigrant, and some members of the Republican congressional leadership are leery of the idea, making its outlook on Capitol Hill uncertain. But presidential advisers said they believe that Hispanic voters, one of the targets for Bush's re-election campaign, will give him credit for pushing for the changes even if nothing is enacted before the election.

Kolbe said in a telephone interview that "there's a mood for the first time since 9/11 that we eventually have to take a look at this problem rather than just hardening the borders." He added, "The president's involvement will be critical."

Cecilia Munoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, a civil rights organization, said the danger is that Bush will propose something "that's going to sound vast and historic but that he knows can't get enacted next year."

"If what the White House proposes is credible, there's likely to be a warm response," Munoz said. "As long as we get results, we're not going to be picky about the motive."