Some Democrats oppose immigration bill

Washington Times:

Republicans, seen as divided during the fight over immigration on Capitol Hill, hope to use the bill's resurrection to expose a Democratic split on the issue.
Democratic leaders across the country say their town hall meetings found voters angry over the Iraq war, while Republicans face wrath from those who think the immigration plan amounts to amnesty. However, Republican campaign staffers point out that Democrats are far from united on immigration -- when the bill died this month, more Senate Democrats voted to block it than Republicans voted to advance it.
"There are a certain number of people here in this country who have put down roots because of the lax immigration laws over the past 20 years and deserve a path," Sen. James H. Webb Jr. of Virginia told CNN. "But this idea of saying every single person who was here as of the end of last year should be accorded ... legalization, is not in the concept of [the] American sense of fairness."
Mr. Webb was one of the Democrats blocking the bill, and he said on CNN earlier this month that he is trying to "bring reason into the process."
Clear divisions exist on the House side, where several freshman Democrats, such as Rep. Nancy Boyda of Kansas, a member of the Immigration Reform Caucus, oppose the current Senate plan.
"Congress needs to prove to the American people that it can control the borders, and that comes with addressing border security first and only until that trust can be restored," said Boyda spokeswoman Shanan Guinn. "Until you take care of that problem, talking about anything else is not going to satisfy rebuilding that trust."
The National Republican Congressional Committee is targeting dozens of freshman Democrats, such as Mrs. Boyda, who captured seats in conservative districts President Bush won in 2004.
"This is the Democrats' dilemma: Either [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi forces their vulnerable members to walk the plank and vote against the interests and values of their districts, or she has another broken promise on her hands," said NRCC spokesman Ken Spain.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee said Democrats will be caught in tough immigration votes.
"When this bill came up before, Senate Democrats voted to allow illegal aliens to receive Social Security benefits ... to condone sanctuary cities and ... against requiring voters to show a photo ID as proof of identity," said NRSC spokeswoman Rebecca Fisher. "They have horrible records on these issues."
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While there may be some ambivalence on the Democrat side the passion against the bill is clearly on the Republican side and it is more of a grass roots passion than is reflected in Washington. In Washington there are very few Republicans who can be said to be passionately for this bill.

This story in the NY Times gives an example of the passion of the Republican grass roots and how it effects Republican senators.

If President Bush thought he could win support for a comprehensive immigration bill by promising to secure the border and step up law enforcement, he would be dismayed by the reaction here.

“It’s all window dressing,” said Mark A. Johnson, a real estate lawyer in this fast-growing suburb of Atlanta. “We don’t believe the government has the will to enforce any of these promises. Everybody can see the folly of it, everybody but the politicians.”

Georgia’s two Republican senators would almost certainly be on the list of politicians arousing Mr. Johnson’s skepticism. The two, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, were part of the small bipartisan group that wrote the original bill. But they have been edging away from it since being strongly criticized in the state.

The storm raging around the bill shows no sign of abating despite reassuring presidential words about strengthening border security.

Reagan W. Dean, a Georgia state employee, said: “Maybe it is possible to secure the border. Maybe it is possible to establish an employee identification system. But I don’t have any confidence that it will be done.”

“It really upsets me to find out that my government says, ‘Yes, we can secure the border, we can detain illegal aliens, we can take all sorts of actions to enforce the law, but we will do so only if Congress provides legal status to those who are here illegally,’ ” Mr. Dean said.

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This is just an example of how the government just has no credibility on promises of enforcement of immigration laws. The current promises are too little and too late to sway opponents of "comprehensive" immigration reform.