Last week, speaking at a Latino gathering, President Bush called
for immigration reforms. ... He might have been talking about the
bipartisan measure
he had just worked so
hard to kill.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-immi26jul26.story
A Stonewalled Migrant Bill
July 26, 2004
Few projects in the current deeply divided Congress have had the support of 63 senators, including 27 Republicans and 12 committee chairmen, only to still end up blocked by the Senate majority leader.
Yet that's just what Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) did this month with a modestly useful little immigration bill. Fearing a reaction from the extreme conservative wing of the GOP, the White House asked the measure's sponsor, Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), not to offer it up. And for good measure, it asked Frist not to let it come to a vote if Craig did present it.
Needless to say, the measure died.
Last week, speaking at a Latino gathering, Bush called for immigration reforms including a guest-worker program and "a system that would grant legal status to temporary workers who are here in the country working." He might have been talking about the bipartisan measure he had just worked so hard to kill.
Craig's measure was cosponsored by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.); a companion measure in the House was offered by Reps. Howard L. Berman (D-North Hollywood) and Chris Cannon (R-Idaho). The proposal would grant about 500,000 foreign farmworkers currently in the U.S. legal permanent residence, though not citizenship, if they continued to work for a certain time in agriculture. It also would provide for an updated guest-worker program, allowing others to enter and leave the country legally. <snip>
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