WASHINGTON (By Billy House and Susan Carroll, Arizona Republic) July 15, 2005 - Congress is unlikely until next year to pass a major immigration-reform plan that includes a guest-worker program, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Thursday.

"It won't be this summer, can't promise this fall," Frist, R-Tenn., said in a conference call with reporters from The Arizona Republic and other news outlets. "More likely in the early part of next year."

Frist's comments came one day after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said that control of the nation's borders requires, in part, reducing the demand for illegal border immigration "by channeling migrants into regulated legal channels to seek work."

President Bush first called on Congress to adopt temporary-worker legislation in 2004. He repeated that call earlier this year.

But so far, no such bills have reached the floor for a vote.

Waiting until 2006 would push the politically volatile issue into an election year for most members of Congress.

Later Thursday, a Frist spokesman said that the majority leader believes that even if the Senate was to pass guest-worker legislation in upcoming months, it is doubtful an agreement with the House could be reached by year's end.

"That part of the challenge seems unlikely," spokesman Nick Smith said, though he did not explain why.

However, House Republicans have remained divided on approaches to immigration reform, and the Senate's attention in upcoming months is expected to be more on Supreme Court confirmation fights and passing spending bills.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., could not be reached Thursday night.

White House spokeswoman Jeannie Mamo had no immediate comment.

A study commissioned by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Hispanic Center and released in June found that 6.3 million foreigners are working in the United States without legal authorization to be in the country. They represent 4.3 percent of the nation's work force. The study estimated the number of undocumented immigrants in the country at 10.3 million to 11 million.

The study found that Arizona, one of the highest-growth states for undocumented immigrants, has about 500,000, or about 5 percent, of the national total of undocumented immigrants.

Frist, in his conference call, said that there are a number of bills proposed and other initiatives being written.

He said any legislation would have to have a "comprehensive bipartisan approach."

He did not specifically endorse any of several proposals that are pending or being developed.

One of the most widely watched is a bipartisan bill co-sponsored in the Senate by John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

That bill would set up a program for undocumented workers already in the country to get temporary visas after paying a fine.

That would then put them on track to become permanent residents or return home in six years.

Next week, Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., are expected to introduce their own immigration-reform plan, and they will start soliciting co-sponsors from both sides of the political aisle, said Don Stewart, a Cornyn spokesman.

The bill, which is still being written, will emphasize enhanced border security, stricter enforcement of existing laws and a tough "no amnesty" stance for immigration lawbreakers as a precondition to giving temporary legal status to some foreign workers.

Neither Kyl nor McCain could be reached Thursday night for comment on Frist's remarks.

But Cornyn aide Stewart remained upbeat.

"I think the bottom line is that at the beginning of this year, nearly everyone had written the obituary for immigration reform," Stewart said.

Since then, he said, there have been seven Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearings on the issue, and there are several competing bills soon to be considered by the full committee.

"So we've moved quite a way, and the momentum is there," he said.

In a speech Wednesday, Chertoff said, "I look forward to working with Congress . . . this year to improve border security significantly through the president's temporary-worker program."

Told of Frist's remarks on Thursday, Chertoff spokesman Russ Knocke said the Department of Homeland Security still expects to move ahead with a number of its own new border-control measures that will touch on immigration reform.

Some of those measures will be announced soon, he said.

In Arizona, reaction to Frist's remarks was mixed.

The Rev. Robin Hoover, founder of Humane Borders, an organization that puts water in the desert for undocumented immigrants, said he didn't expect any reform to pass this year.

"It's going to take new bills that are more comprehensive," Hoover said, describing a melding of law and order with labor and human rights provisions.

"In the meantime," he said, "(migrant) deaths are going to continue to be the single strongest measure of why we have to reform our laws."

But Elias Bermudez, executive director of the Phoenix-based advocacy group Centro de Ayuda, said he plans to organize a national economic boycott lasting at least two days in September if Congress does not move forward with immigration reform.

"We are going to take matters into our own hands and start pushing for immigration reform, and it has to be done this year," Bermudez said. "We cannot afford to have it next year, most importantly because next year is going to be an election year and there will be a lot of senators and congressmen who don't want to touch this with a 10-foot pole."

He called the situation along the Southwestern border a "huge problem for national security and a huge problem because our people are dying."