<Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., on Wednesday renewed his commitment to bring an immigration bill to the Senate floor on March 27 - whether the Senate Judiciary Committee has completed its work or not. And he pledged to spend two weeks in Senate debate on immigration, a timeframe Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada deemed wholly insufficient.
"We can't do the bill in two weeks," Reid said.
While the Frist proposal doesn't include a guest worker plan, senators say their understanding is they'd be able to offer amendments adding other programs.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn said he and fellow Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona would offer as an amendment their plan, which would provide illegal immigrants with guest worker visas for six years before requiring them to permanently return home.
Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., have offered a different plan, one that would place illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship if they meet certain requirements at the end of a six-year guest worker stint.
The House last December adopted a tough enforcement-only bill, and whatever the Senate does will have to be ironed out with House negotiators.
Senate Democrats said they feared the GOP leadership is less interested in getting an immigration bill through Congress than in having a political issue to debate during the upcoming congressional elections.>
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/14107417.htm
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