Politics

Martinez hurls immigration gauntlet

The senator charges the defeated bill's foes to offer up ideas.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 30, 2007

LAKE BUENA VISTA - The chairman of the Republican Party on Friday lambasted Democrats and Republicans who helped kill an immigration bill in the Senate and challenged them to come up with a solution beyond "just build a fence along the border."

"The voices of negativity now have a responsibility to come up with an answer, " RNC Chairman and U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez said.

"How will you fix the situation to make peoples' lives better? How will you continue to grow the economy? How will we bring people out of the shadows for our national security and for the sake of being a country that is just?" he demanded.

Martinez spoke to a gathering of more than 1, 000 Hispanic officials from across the country at Disney World, a day after the immigration bill's Senate supporters fell short of the 60 votes needed to limit debate and clear the way for its final passage.

Martinez promised to work with members of the U.S. House of Representatives to try to revive the legislation, a measure the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials supports.

Time for such efforts is tight before the 2008 presidential campaign heats up, Martinez told reporters, but he added, "you can't live from election to election. We have to once in a while act as responsible, elected officials and resolve the nation's problems."

About half a dozen U.S. representatives planned to strategize over the weekend at the conference on how to revive the bill.

But U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the lone GOP presidential candidate at the conference, called a revival unlikely.

Hunter stood by legislation to extend a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and said the government needs to do a better job of asking those here illegally to go home. He did not say how he would convince the nation's 12-million undocumented immigrants to leave. "Let's get the border enforced first before you get to the subsections of enforcement, " he said.

Wednesday's immigration vote was 46 to 53, with three-quarters of the Senate's Republicans voting to derail the bill.

[Last modified June 29, 2007, 23:45:52]