SENSENBRENNER: HOUSE REPUBLICANS FIRM ON IMMIGRATION BILL

The AP’s Suzanne Gamboa that Jim Sensenbrenner, (R-WI), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, remains firm in a number of his demands. Here’s some details from her article:

“This will set up a very difficult House-Senate conference committee because the approaches taken by the House and Senate on this issue have been 180 degrees apart,” said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the Judiciary Committee and principal author of the more stringent House bill. “Amnesty is wrong,” he told a news conference.

Yesterday I wrote that the House, Senate Moving Towards Each Other, based on several quotes, including this Sensenbrenner quote

“I don’t think anything is a deal-breaker,” Sensenbrenner, who will lead House negotiators, said in a CBS appearance. “We can’t have legal proceedings to deport 11 to 12 million people, that is evident.” I’ll take Mr. Sensenbrenner at his word that there won’t be “legal proceedings to deport 11 to 12 million people”.

That said, I think it’s clear that there won’t be an eagerness on his part to establish an earned citizenship program right away.

My best guess is that he’ll demand that there be proof that the border is sealed off before the earned citizenship program would start. I’m also betting that he’ll demand that the silly Dodd Amendment be eliminated and the Sessions Amendment be strengthened in conference. The Dodd Amendment simply says that we must consult with the Mexican government before we build the wall and the vehicle barriers. That thing’s history already. There’s no way that Sensenbrenner will consent to that. I suspect that Sensenbrenner might, at most, agree to a provision that says we’ll notify the Mexican government when and where we’ll build the barriers and walls.

We’ll almost certainly see the Sessions Amendment, which provides for 370 miles of triple-layered walls and 500 miles of vehicle barriers, strengthened to a number much closer to the House’s 700 miles of triple-layered walls.

Bush, walking down the White House Colonnade with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday morning, ignored a shouted question about whether the House and Senate will be able to compromise. But he did say that an effective measure would protect U.S. borders, make employers responsible for people they hire, create a temporary worker program, deal with the illegal immigrants already in the U.S. and “honor America’s great tradition of the melting pot.”

If you read between the lines, you see the outlines for a compromise coming out. Notice that the President is saying that securing the border and holding employers accountable is as much a priority of his as the temp worker program and dealing with illegal immigrants. I don’t think that that’s the type of thing that Ted Kennedy, John McCain and Dick Durbin want to hear.