Senator seeks middle ground on immigration enforcement bill

A Senate immigration proposal that began circulating Friday is easier on employers than the immigration-enforcement bill that the House adopted last year, but its plan for a temporary worker program still appears likely to attract critics on both sides of the issue.

Under a proposal by Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., that incorporates components of bills by committee members, employers would have to verify the legal status of all new employees -- unlike the House bill that requires companies to check the legality of all their workers, existing hires as well as new.

In a nod to the business community, which argued that the House bill was too onerous, Specter's bill would phase in over five years the requirement that all companies use a government database to check employees' status, in contrast to the House bill's two-year phase-in period.

The committee will begin considering the chairman's mark during a markup session Thursday.

According to an outline of the mark, illegal workers would be permitted to join a guestworker program that would allow them to remain in the United States for three years, with the possibility of extending their stay for an additional three years. After that, the workers would be required to return to their home country.

The draft also would lift the cap on worker visas for certain foreign-born skilled workers, raising the H1-B visa cap to 115,000 for temporary workers who hold advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math from a U.S. university. In fiscal 2005, Congress reserved an additional 20,000 H1-B visas for those workers.

Visa availability has been a perennial issue for business since Congress slashed the cap by 130,000 in 2002, down to 65,000. At its peak, the cap stood at 195,000. Earlier this month, President Bush urged Congress to raise the H1-B cap.

Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow with the right-of-center Manhattan Institute, said the Specter proposal is not likely to satisfy either Republicans who are opposed to expanding immigration or many Republicans and Democrats who want a guestworker plan that gives illegal workers a "path" to permanent citizenship.

"The hardliners will see it as amnesty, and the reformers will say it won't work," she said.

The bill also includes some of the tougher enforcement provisions included in the House bill. For example, it makes it a criminal offense to be in the country unlawfully and an aggravated felony to harbor an illegal entrant.

Specter must win over conservatives and moderates on his committee, a difficult feat given the contentious topic and the backdrop of election-year politics. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has said he wants the Senate to begin debating an immigration bill by the end of March and is readying his own legislation in case the committee does not pass a bill.

Specter, however, has been firm that his committee's product will wind up on the floor. The bill includes border security elements likely to please conservatives, as well as family reunification proposals and an increase in the number of employment-based green cards from 140,000 to 290,000 that immigrant advocates have sought.

"There's something for everyone to like in the mark, but there's also a poison pill for everyone," Jacoby said. "But this is only a first draft."