NYT: Senators Reach Outline on Immigration Bill

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/us/09immig.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin

Senators Reach Outline on Immigration Bill

By JULIA PRESTON
Published: May 9, 2007

WASHINGTON, May 8 — Key senators said Tuesday that they had agreed on the outlines of a bipartisan bill that would toughen border enforcement and provide a path to legal status for illegal immigrants.

But they remain deeply divided on many details, lawmakers and Congressional aides said, and it remains unclear whether a deal can be reached by Monday, the deadline set by Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, for putting a compromise bill on the floor.

A group of Republican and Democratic senators and senior Bush administration officials have been negotiating intensively for the last several months to see if a bipartisan deal is possible this year on immigration, a politically volatile issue that has exposed fissures between and within the parties. President Bush, eager for a big second-term domestic accomplishment, has been pushing for legislation that he can sign, but his own party has been wary of any compromise that is seen as being too lenient toward the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said negotiators had reached what they called a “grand bargain.” It includes a series of triggers, Mr. Specter said, that require new border security measures to be up and running before the start of any programs to give legal status to people in the country illegally.

Points of continuing contention include the severity of penalties that illegal immigrants would have to face to seek legal status; whether temporary guest workers should be allowed an avenue to stay and become citizens; and what family members future immigrant workers should be allowed to bring to the United States, Senate aides and administration officials said.

Mr. Specter said there was agreement that illegal immigrants would “have to earn being on the citizenship path,” by, at minimum, paying back taxes, showing they had a substantial period of employment in the United States and learning English.

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