Immigration bill authors add more enforcement measures

WASHINGTON —  The architects of major immigration legislation have added a slew of enforcement measures to the package to woo skeptical conservatives, part of the bid to pass the bill in the Senate next week.

The bill’s supporters and some opponents have agreed to start debate on the measure Tuesday, but even that remains uncertain.

A procedural vote will be required to resurrect the legislation, which stalled earlier this month, and clearing the hurdle could be a close call.

“It’s been rocky, as you know; there have been some ups and downs,” said Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the bill’s chief GOP proponent. “The bill was dead for a while ... but I think we have a very good opportunity to get it concluded by the end of [next] week.”

Lawmakers see this as probably the last chance to address the immigration issue on a significant scale until the 2008 elections.

Kyl said the new enforcement measures should “assuage concerns.” They include a provision to jail and deport immigrants who overstay visas. The immigrants would be permanently barred from the U.S.

Another provision would deploy up to 10,000 officers to enforce immigration laws in the workplace, far more than currently focus on that task. Also, any immigrants linked to gang activity would be deported and barred from the U.S.

“I am not naive enough to think that people who oppose doing anything ... will necessarily come on board” because of the efforts to toughen the bill, Kyl said. “But the folks who have been critical of the enforcement effort will have to acknowledge we’ve gone a long way to meet their concerns.”

The attempt to woo more conservative lawmakers could jeopardize support for the bill among more liberal ones, however, further clouding the legislation’s prospects.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said the process of altering the bill “has tilted far to the right ... and provided little to no chance for those of us trying to bring the bill closer to where it was” when the Senate considered a similar measure last year, “which is to the middle.”

Despite the added enforcement amendments, several Republicans said recently that they would not back the bill. Those include Georgia Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, who were once part of the coalition that wrote it. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) have also announced their opposition.

The bill’s backers hope that if they can jump-start debate, they’ll be able to set a final up-or-down vote by week’s end. If the bill passes the Senate, it will face a stern test in the House.

President Bush will continue his lobbying effort, devoting his weekly radio address today to promoting the Senate bill.

The bill would bolster border security and create a temporary-worker program.

It would partly restructure future immigration to put more emphasis on skills and education and less on family ties, a controversial step for some Democrats.

And it would create a way for illegal immigrants to get legal status through a “Z” visa, a provision strongly opposed by many Republicans.

The multifaceted approach represents the “grand bargain” reached by the bipartisan group of senators pressing for the bill’s passage. The Bush administration also was part of the talks.

The bill’s authors say some of the amendments scheduled for consideration next week would undercut the accord -- and unravel support for the bill.

They cited one that would bar illegal immigrants from becoming citizens, and another that would require all adult illegal immigrants to return to their home country within two years of getting a Z visa.

An amendment offered by Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has set off a heated struggle with the White House.

The senators would eliminate the bill’s requirement that employers check the legal status of every worker, calling it “unnecessary.”

Their amendment would require checks on existing workers only when there was evidence to suspect unlawful employment -- for instance, if the Social Security Administration sent notice that a number did not match records or was being used more than once.

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nicole.gaouette@latimes.com