House rejecting Senate Immigration bill

NY Times:

The leading House negotiator on immigration denounced on Friday the bipartisan legislation that passed the Senate this week, saying House Republicans would never support a bill that gives illegal immigrants a chance at American citizenship.

The negotiator, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he could envision legislation that included a guest-worker program. But he insisted that strong enforcement measures would have to be in place first, including an employment-verification system and tough sanctions on employers who hired illegal immigrants.

Mr. Sensenbrenner said he would continue to reject President Bush's call for a compromise because he believed that the president, who supports a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, remained out of touch with the public.

"The president is not where the American people are at," Mr. Sensenbrenner said at a news conference. "The Senate is not where the American people are at."

"Amnesty is wrong because it rewards someone for illegal behavior," he said. "And I reject the spin that the senators have been putting on their proposal. It is amnesty."

...

Matthew Dowd, a strategist for Mr. Bush, said in a memorandum that polls conducted for the Republican Party suggested strong support among Republicans and conservatives for a temporary-worker program and for legalizing illegal immigrants.

But House conservatives strongly disagreed. One House aide said on Friday that constituents were furiously calling lawmakers to express outrage about the Senate plan, which would require the government to consult with Mexico before building a fence along the border.

NumbersUSA, a conservative group that supports reduced immigration, said the plan "would create the largest immigration increase in U.S. history — a disaster for American workers and taxpayers."

Mr. Sensenbrenner said the Senate was poised to "repeat the mistakes" of the failed 1986 amnesty law, which was supposed to end illegal immigration by legalizing illegal immigrants, securing the country's borders and cracking down on employers.

Instead, fraudulent applications tainted the process, many employers continued illicit hiring practices, and illegal immigration surged. "I would hope the Senate would take a look back," Mr. Sensenbrenner said.

...

The Washington Times reports that Sen. John McCain is already trying to broker adeal, but he is not talking with Sensenbrenner. McCain has little chance of persuading the majority of House Republicans to go along with his legislation, which they oppose strongly. Without Sensenbrenner and Hastert it hard to see how he will even get a vote even if he could peel off enough Republicans to vote witht he Democrats to pass his bill. There is just too much in it to oppose and the "path to citizenship" is just one of the most visible pieces. One of the m,ain problems with the Senate bill is that it will encourage future illegal entry into the country, because there is no real consquence for failing to obey the law. In some cases the alien actually gets a better deal than itizens, and in all cases he gets a better deal than those who try to come here legally.