Sacramento Bee

November 15, 2004

Guest-worker measure awaits a new Congress

Backers are renewing a push for an immigration bill to give farm workers a shot at a green card

By Michael Doyle -- Bee Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Immigration reform sank in President Bush's first term, weighted down by post-Sept. 11 fears and sharp divisions among congressional Republicans.

Now, Bush is signaling renewed attention to immigration. That's heartening advocates of reform, dismaying skeptics and raising questions of both strategy and tactics.

"There is a definite movement to go forward in January, so it hits the floor as one of the very first bills, and Congress can really dig into it," said Manuel Cunha, president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League.

Advocates from the Nisei Farmers League to the United Farm Workers pushed hard this year for the immigration reform bill dubbed AgJobs.

The proposal to give several hundred thousand undocumented agricultural workers a shot at a green card and, eventually, U.S. citizenship has long enticed immigrants in the Central Valley.

"It's very much on people's minds," said Catherine Hallinan, an attorney with the Modesto office of California Rural Legal Assistance.

The federally funded legal aid office is not permitted to handle immigration issues. Nonetheless, its attorneys and investigators often hear from farm workers eager to know more about immigration reform proposals.

"They very much want it, especially to unite their families," said Ignacio Musino, a CRLA community worker whose job takes him from Marysville to Merced. "There are a lot of rumors about it."

The bill's chief Senate author, Idaho Republican Larry Craig, plans a White House meeting to discuss immigration prospects in the upcoming 109th Congress. Another prominent immigration reform supporter, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., already has met with the White House.

"Now that the election is behind us ... the president intends to engage Congress on this," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters en route to Mexico last week.

With a filibuster-proof 63 senators already co-sponsors, the AgJobs bill could be poised to move. Supporters, many of them organized through the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, hope for Senate action by spring.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., though not a co-sponsor, said Friday that she "could support such an effort if it is done properly and not in a way that would serve as a magnet for new illegal immigration."

But, although a companion House bill claims 126 supporters, opponents hold strong opinions and key positions, including chairmanships of the House immigration subcommittee.

"The next Senate and House will be, if anything, less receptive" to immigration reform, predicted Mark Krikorian, president of the Center for Immigration Studies. "If the president makes a big push on this, he's going to waste a lot of political capital on something he can't win."

Krikorian, whose organization opposes immigration liberalization measures, added that several newly elected senators take a much harder line on immigration than the lawmakers they're replacing.

For instance, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. - an AgJobs supporter - is being replaced by conservative Republican Richard Burr, whose positions include banning illegal immigrant children from public schools.

Bush himself has thus far resisted the centerpiece of the AgJobs bill. This is the guarantee that an undocumented agricultural worker can get on track to secure legal status.

Bush's own concept is both more modest, providing only a temporary worker permit for illegal immigrants, and more sweeping, as it includes workers from outside of agriculture. It is also more vague, lacking specific legislative language.

"It's important for us to go after that which is doable and not go after something that we know is beyond our reach," Powell said. "And so we don't want expectations to be too high, but we do want to make progress."

One reason may be seen in the presidential election results.

Bush won an estimated 44 percent of the Latino vote on Nov. 2, according to voter surveys. In 2000, he only won an estimated 35 percent of the Latino vote.

A Pew Hispanic Center survey in July found that 28 percent of Latino residents termed immigration an "extremely" important issue for them in the presidential campaign, while 45 percent considered immigration "very" important.

"The election definitely showed Republicans that all Latinos don't necessarily vote Democratic," Cunha said, "and I think that's going to have an impact on the president."

Against this, Bush must balance the inclinations of his conservative base. The skeptics like Tracy Republican Richard Pombo warn against what they call "amnesty," and the political sentiments can grow intense.

This year, for instance, Glendora Republican David Dreier was targeted for defeat by a popular Los Angeles radio talk show whose hosts relentlessly claimed Dreier was soft on illegal immigration.

Dreier's opponent, Democrat Cynthia Matthews, explicitly contrasted her harder line on immigration with Dreier's positions.

Dreier won with 54 percent of the vote, after outspending Matthews by a 50-1 ratio. By contrast, he won with 64 percent of the vote in 2002, when he wasn't being targeted for his immigration reform stands.

AgJobs supporters say they know they may not win Bush's explicit support, but they hope he may allow momentum to build for the issue even if legislative details differ.