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Politics

Despite Bush's support, immigration bill crushed

A Senate vote ends any foreseeable chance of an overhaul of the system.

By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
Published June 29, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Kathleen Flynn] Daisy Aguilar, 3, looks up at her father Eduardo Aguilar, her mother Anatilla Lopez, sits behind at their trailer they rent for 200 dollars a week in Wimauma. Eduardo said he would love the chance to work legally. They are saving money to build a home in their home country Guatemala.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's proposal to legalize as many as 12-million illegal immigrants while fortifying the border collapsed in the Senate on Thursday, crushing chances of addressing the volatile issue before the 2008 elections.

For the second time this month, the Senate drove a stake through a delicate compromise and dealt a setback to Bush, who had made reshaping immigration laws a central element of his domestic agenda.

"Legal immigration is one of the top concerns of the American people and Congress' failure to act on it is a disappointment," a grim-faced Bush said Thursday. "A lot of us worked hard to see if we couldn't find common ground. It didn't work."

Both of Florida's senators voted in favor of allowing the legislation to proceed to a final vote, but it fell 14 votes short with a tally of 46-53.

"I believe that until another election occurs, or until something happens in the body politic, that what occurred today was fairly final," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who also is chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Asked what happens next, Martinez said, "I'm really not sure I have a good answer. (Sen. John) McCain said it when we were sitting around this morning and began to hear the vote was going down: 'Just like Iraq, there is no Plan B.'"

- - -

Far from chanting activists and the shrill debate in Congress, Eduardo Aguilar and his family live in a mobile home in an immigrant labor camp in Wimauma, southeast of Tampa.

Aguilar, 37, and his wife, heard the news late Thursday afternoon. There will be no immigration reform. A bill to overhaul the nation's system was dead, along with their chance to work here legally.

They've been following news reports, Aguilar said, but recently they've been so busy working and worrying about paying rent that they've lost track of the legislation.

They had no work this past week because the owner of the farm where they labor was on vacation.

They pay $200 a week to live here, where a dozen or more mobile homes are lined up in a row and roosters and chickens strut between pickups and vans.

Aguilar said he thought maybe this time, change was for real. Everyone said so.

What can they do but keep working and trying to live under the radar, Aguilar said.

They drive straight to work and back. They walk to a local grocery. They don't take their four children on trips, never venturing to a nearby town or the beach.

"We are always afraid to leave except to go to work," his wife, Anatilla Lopez, said.

The couple left Guatemala seven years ago in search of more than the mere survival they eked out of the cornfields there. They paid smugglers $5,000 to help them make the four-night trek across the border from Mexico into Arizona. Their youngest child, a 3-year-old girl, was born here.

It took them three years to pay off the debt to friends for the money. Since then, they've been saving to build a house in Guatemala, where they hope to return.

They think it will take four or five more years to save the $40,000 they need.

- - -

Back on Capitol Hill on Thursday, the partisan finger-pointing had commenced

Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, called it "a reminder of why the American people voted Republicans out in 2006 and why they'll vote against them in 2008."

The measure was the product of a liberal-to-conservative alliance led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and designed to withstand challenges from the left and right.

It was an imperfect, but necessary fix, they said. It paired the Democratic goal of legalizing those millions with the Republican desire to fortify the border and prevent illegal workers from getting jobs.

Ultimately, though, what came to be known as their "grand bargain" commanded only lukewarm support in both parties, which was no match for the vehement and vocal opposition of Republican conservatives who derided it as amnesty.

"The end result was a blanket that was too small to cover everyone," said Tamar Jacoby, an analyst at the conservative Manhattan Institute who was a strong supporter. "By its nature, because it was a compromise, it was hard to muster intense support. But the opposition was very intense."

Conservative foes' were among the loudest voices during the debate, led by Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and David Vitter, R-La. Their views were amplified by talk radio TV hosts who repeatedly attacked the bill and urged listeners to flood Congress with calls, faxes and e-mails.

The conservatives hailed the bill's demise as a fitting death of an effort that had thwarted the will of the American people. They faulted Bush and their own party for trying to push a measure that lacked public support.

"They made a big mistake. I think the president's approach didn't work," Sessions said. Republicans "need to be careful we don't walk into such an adverse circumstance again."

Advocates of the bill warned that lawmakers would pay a price for their inability to deal with the issue.

"Immigrant workers and families will continue to live in fear, die in the desert, and be subject to exploitation. Local communities will continue to be roiled by federal inaction and local ordinances. Voters will continue to ask why their elected leaders seem incapable of solving tough problems," said Frank Sharry, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, one of several liberal groups pushing for passage despite misgivings about key bill elements.

In a statement, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., also expressed his disappointment. "Most everyone agrees our immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed. ... While the plan had flaws, it was a first step toward securing our borders and enforcing our immigration laws."

- - -

Roberto Lunes lives in a one-story apartment complex in Wimauma that is home to many undocumented workers and their families.

The 34-year-old mechanic said he was disappointed on behalf of many families, but added that he also had misgivings about the bill.

Perhaps more time hashing through the proposals could yield a better bill in the future, said Lunes, who left Mexico because of the lack of opportunities.

"They need to analyze this problem," he said. "This is not a game."

He and his wife, along with their 7-year-old America-born daughter, plan to return to Mexico next year after a decade of working in the fields, asbestos removal and landscaping.

He and his wife have funneled $50,000 back to Mexico to build a house. He plans to work in his father's small business selling fruit and clothes.

In a few years, if that plan doesn't work, maybe a reform bill will have passed so he can come back legally, he said Thursday.

"God decides, " he said. "People say this is my country, you can't come here, but to God, it's all one. There is no border."

Times staff writer Bill Adair and Congressional Quarterly reporter Michael Sandler contributed to this report, which used information from the Associated Press.

FAST FACTS: What's next?

• House Democratic leaders signaled Thursday they had little appetite for taking up an issue that bitterly divides both parties and has tied the Senate in knots for weeks.
• Key lawmakers in both parties predicted that further action on the contentious issue was unlikely this year, dooming its prospects as the political strains of a crowded presidential contest get louder.

[Last modified June 29, 2007, 00:43:23]