House OKs Mexican border fence
Toolbox
By LISA FRIEDMAN Los Angeles Daily News - Published: December 18, 2005
WASHINGTON — Far-reaching legislation that turns America's estimated 11 million illegal aliens into felons passed the House late Friday after a raging two-day debate.
The bill passed 239-182 largely along party lines after Republicans beat back a last-ditch attempt by Democrats to scuttle it.
The legislation authorizes construction of a fence along 698 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border and makes employees responsible for knowing the immigration status of their workers. Anyone who hires an illegal immigrant could be fined as much as $25,000 per worker.
It encourages state and local police agencies to enforce immigration laws and lets them use first-responder grant money to do so. It also ends the "catch and release" policy for illegal non-Mexicans and imposes tougher penalties for smuggling and illegal re-entry.
Republican leaders put off consideration of a guest worker program advocated by President George W. Bush as a lasting solution to the illegal immigration problem. By removing nonbinding language expressing the sense that the economy needs temporary immigrant workers, GOP leaders also secured the votes of several Southern California Republicans who staunchly oppose illegal immigration.
They also refused to allow a vote on a volatile proposal to deny citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants.
Californians frustrated with levels of illegal immigration called the bill a small but needed step in immigration reform. An estimated 3 million undocumented people live in the state.
"People are just flying in here. There's too many people and they're not assimilating," said Bill Clausen, a security guard from Buellton, in Santa Barbara County.
"There's crime, there's big-time racial tensions in our schools, and I also see the blame and wrath is being directed at the immigrants themselves. It should be directed at our government and Mexico's government."
Democrats and immigration advocates blasted it as a sham that neither rids the country of illegal immigrants nor gives them an opportunity to obtain legal status.
Many also said they fear sweeping provisions that make all illegal immigrants into felons. Currently entering the country illegally is a felony but being in the U.S. illegally is a civil offense. In addition, they said the bill applies criminal penalties to anyone who assists an illegal immigrant, a description they criticized as so broad it could include churches, clinics and social agencies that provide services without asking questions about legal status.
"Many of our families are mixed families where we may have undocumented members," said Eun Sook Lee, director of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium in Los Angeles, raising the specter of men and women arrested for failing to turn in family members.
"We could be charged with breaking the law because we serve people who are undocumented," added Angela Sanbrano, who runs the Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles.
She said she fears that the bill will start a "witch hunt."
"People will see that it's a mean-spirited effort to try to keep immigrants from coming into this country and getting the ones that are here to leave," she said. "I think it's going to alienate the voters from the Republican Party."
GOP leaders refused to hear an amendment by Rep. Gary Miller, R-Brea, that would prohibit pregnant women from entering the U.S. and another ensuring that anyone seeking mortgage credit be a citizen or legal resident.
The Rules Committee, led by Rep. David Dreier, R-Glendora, also blocked an amendment by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Lakewood, that would have authorized $1 billion to reimburse local governments the costs of incarcerating illegal aliens.
The bill now moves to the Senate, where its future is uncertain.
Majority Leader Bill Frist has vowed to take it up early next year. Whatever emerges is likely to include some type of program granting illegal immigrants the opportunity to obtain legal status.
Staunch House opponents of illegal immigration have vowed to oppose the bill and to undermine Republicans on other issues if the final version includes a guest worker program.
"I'm very skeptical that you will ever see this bill coming back here," said Rep. Howard Berman, D-Van Nuys, who favors enabling illegal agricultural workers to obtain legal status and, eventually, U.S. citizenship.
"There are major obstacles to getting it beyond this point," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., an immigration hardliner who favored an even stiffer bill including one that denied citizenship to babies of illegal immigrants born in America.
But, he said, "That's a fight to fight tomorrow." XXX
NYT-12-17-05 0059EST
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