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May 20, 2006

Hot Story: Immigration Reform

Beltway Boys

FRED BARNES, CO-HOST: Coming up, immigration becomes the make or break issue for President Bush and the Republican Party. We'll tell you what's at stake.

MORT KONDRACKE, CO-HOST: We'll take a closer look at the president's immigration plan and whether a deal is possible between the House and Senate.

BARNES: Karl Rove speaks out one of my favorite topic.

KONDRACKE: And Al Gore is out of his funk. But is he really planning a political come back?

BARNES: Hang on to your seats, "The Beltway Boys" are next, right after the headlines.

(NEWSBREAK)

KONDRACKE: I'm Mort Kondracke.

BARNES: And I'm Fred Barnes and we're "The Beltway Boys."

And the hot story this week -- Mort, there is only one hot story. It is all or nothing. Zero. Zip. I am talking about immigration reform and this legislation, which is now before Congress being debated all this past week and in the House earlier last December.

This is the biggest issue of our decade, a huge domestic issue, which will affect many, many things in America. And it is all or nothing.

Either, on the one hand, you're gong to get a bill, a comprehensive bill. And, of course, that's become President Bush's favorite word now, "comprehensive."

And he's in favor of this bill that would do three things. It would really step up the enforcement on the border. It would allow the 11 million or 12 million illegal immigrants here to work their way to citizenship, earn citizenship, so-called. And have a temporary jobs program. It would bring in some foreign workers, who would work here temporarily.

And the senate is going to pass, I think, a bill with these three things, the comprehensive bill next week.

The House, last December you remember, passed an enforcement-only bill. And some of these House members, like Tom Tancredo and J.D. Hayworth, are really attached to the idea of enforcement-only, and anything else is amnesty, even though they're wrong about that amnesty bill business.

Now, it looked like the House might not change. And then the new Majority Leader John Boehner said this a couple days ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER, (R) OHIO: I don't underestimate the difficulty in getting there. But the American people sent us here to make real decisions on behalf of the country. And they want us to make real decisions about how we're going to control illegal immigration and how to deal with those that are here. And over the course of this year, I am optimistic that the congress will do what the American people expect of us, make decisions on their behalf.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARNES: Did you notice that? How to deal with those who are already here? That is the 11 million or 12 million illegal immigrants that now was the time to do something about them.

He did not mention a temporary worker program. But, you know, that is two out of three, enforce the border and have them earn citizenship. So I think the House is moving in that direction.

KONDRACKE: Yes, here's President Bush selling his program in Arizona this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I strongly believe that Congress needs to pass a comprehensive immigration bill. Because you cannot secure the border unless you have all elements of a comprehensive plan in place. Doing our duty to secure the border requires a comprehensive approach. The United States Senate needs to act by the end of this month.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARNES: Mort, did you notice that? How come -- we have to wear ties? The president of the United States.

KONDRACKE: He's the president of the United States; therefore, he can do whatever he wants, especially in Arizona.

BARNES: All right. Go ahead.

KONRACKE: What the House did, if you liken these to vehicles, the House passed a motorcycle, enforcement only.

What the Senate has been doing is processing a car. And the car has been getting banged and nicked by conservative Republicans trying to drive it off the road. And so far it has survived. It is still rolling.

There have been amendments to postpone the whole guest worker program and the legalization program, until the border is absolutely secure, which will be never.

It is making it nearly impossible for anybody who's ever committed, even an administrative violation, to ever become a legal citizen, to deny the -- to eliminate the guest worker program or eliminate the guest worker.

So far, the car is still rolling. And it's going to achieve passage in the Senate this week. And then, of course, we have a House-Senate conference, which is going to be much more problematical. But, eventually, I think we're gong to have our comeuppance later in the summer, to see whether a bill could pass.

BARNES: And I think one can. Well, don't you?

KONDRACKE: I do. I do. I do think a bill can pass.

BARNES: And along that line, Senate and Democrats and Republicans, this week, were just falling all over themselves to make concessions to woo those enforcement-only Republicans. And I guess there are a few Democrats as well. But it's mainly Republicans in the House of Representatives.

You know, they agreed to build a fence. Not the 700 mile fence in the House bill, but 370 miles. The president instantly endorsed that as well.

They said felons can't get in the earned citizenship program. They said English is our national Language. I mean, that's sort of belaboring the obvious. Of course it is our national language. But those are concessions.

But I think there are other concessions, areas of potential compromise that could really get a majority of Republicans in the House.

One is, limiting the number of guest workers. Now, they already dropped it from, what, something like 370,000 to 200,000. But, if they need to, they can lower it; make it much lower than that. And then, of course, you can add later if the program -- if it isn't enough, if business needs more.

And I think the business community says it needs, what, 425,000.

KONDRACKE: 425,000.

BARNES: You could force the return of the guest workers. You could say, if they're going to be citizens, they're going to have -- want to get in the citizenship program, they've got to return to their home country first.

And maybe it'll be just a toe tap, where you go inside and come right back with a job, or stay awhile.

The swipe card for employees, now if you are legally legitimate in the country, not necessarily a citizen, but a worker who's legitimate, you get a swipe card, couldn't be duplicated or faked.

It would use that -- what do you call that -- biometric card. And employers wouldn't have an excuse and say, well, gee, he showed me a social security card. I didn't know it was fake. They couldn't get away with that. The swipe card would really force employers to only hire people who were here legally.

And then you could just cap the number of green cards. But that's sort of an extreme step because it would affect, you know, all the foreigners who come to the United States. And heaven knows we want a lot of them.

But those are further concessions that I think can help woo these Republicans in the House.

KONDRACKE: Well, there's an interesting story about what happened on one of your points, and that is the forced return. That is making these workers go back home before they can get back to the United States after a work permit, and not be able to stay in the United States.

The White House actually started helping John Kyle, a conservative Republican from Arizona, to pass that bill. And then John McCain, I'm informed, called Karl Rove and pulled the White House back, and it changed its position. And eventually that limitation went down 58 to 35, with the White House help.

Now, the green card, the bill, as it now stands, triples the number of green cards over the next 10 years. And I think it really is.

BARNES: A lot.

KONDRACKE: Well, it's important to get and have enough green cards so you are not -- to make the process legal so you're not having people coming across the border to work illegally.

And furthermore, there ought to be a vast increase in the number of green cards available to skilled workers.

BARNES: Smart people.

KONDRACKE: The people that we want -- well, some of the illegals are smart. They're just unskilled.

And one other compromise that you could do is to increase the length of the fence. They got 700 in the House, and 370 in the Senate. You know, make it 500 if that will get some votes.

BARNES: I don't know if you agree with this or not, but I think this is do or die for this legislation for Republicans.

I mean, it's the Tancredos and those people who have really convinced the country that this is a crisis now. It is such a crisis it has to be dealt with now. People are streaming across the border illegal into this country.

And if they fail to get a bill -- and Republicans are in charge in Washington and they have the House and the Senate and the White House -- if they fail to get a bill, if the president or somebody in Congress has to say, you know, we tackled this issue of the decade and -- well, we'll get back to it next year, maybe. I mean, that is not enough.

I mean, they're going to be pilloried for not passing an enforcement bill, particularly if these enforcement-only Republicans who won't back a bill that has further stuff in it.

Look, Democrats are going to blame them for not passing an enforcement bill.

KONDRACKE: They should.

BARNES: Of course they should. Hand an issue to Democrats is crazy. But, wait a minute. If they pass it, this will be a remarkable achievement, really grabbing a hold of the issue of the decades. I think it will revive Bush's presidency, some, and really give Republicans running for reelection a shot in the arm, something positive to talk about.

KONDRACKE: Yes, well, but Iraq is still the problem right now.

BARNES: Good point. But anyway, that's not going to help. This will.

KONDRACKE: Look, I take your point.

It reminds me of 1994 and the Clinton Health Care Bill, you failed to get the bill, and you get hurt.

Now, the Democrats have been -- desperately want to get back control of Congress. And they've been playing a kind of mixed game.

At first, they said the House Bill was draconian. Now, this was kind of cynical because the House Republicans wanted a pull back from making it a felony to be an illegal alien. And the Democrats would not let them.

Then the Democrats went on -- some of the Democrats are saying, well, this president has not been as tough as he could be on border security and there's some statistics to back that up.

Then they've also been trying to avoid the wrath of the AFL-CIO's, which is against the guest worker program. And in fact, this limitation, down to 200,000 guest workers, was sponsored by Jeff Bingaman, who's a Democrat from New Mexico and Byron Dorgan, another Democrat tried to eliminate the whole program on behalf of the AFL-CIO.

But finally, to their credit, what the Democrats are basically doing is trying to pass this bill. They are providing pretty solid -- you know, there are some Democrats defectors, but fundamentally the Democrats are supporting Bush on this bill. And if it passes, it will be thanks to them.

BARNES: Well, Bush is leading too, as our congressional leaders. Now, even John Boehner, it looks like.

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