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CCH® HR MANAGEMENT — 03/21/07

Kennedy welcomes Bush's push towards immigration reform

President Bush is optimistic that Congress can pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, and he is looking to Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass), to help advance legislation. While traveling in Mexico, the President, on March 14, acknowledged that supporters of comprehensive immigration reform face legislative challenges. But Bush said that his administration is committed to finding common ground on the difficult issue. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Department of Commerce Secretary Carol Gutierrez have been negotiating with Republican lawmakers, hoping to find areas of agreement with Kennedy and the Democrats.

"I will tell you, if we can find that common ground, we have a very good chance of getting the bill out of the Senate, because Senator Kennedy is one of the best legislative senators there is. He can get the job done," Bush remarked. Kennedy welcomed Bush's remarks. "I share President Bush's optimism that we can—and will—finally fix our broken immigration system and appreciate his words of support," Kennedy stated.

Kennedy has yet to introduce an immigration reform bill and it is unclear when that will happen. But the Massachusetts senator made it clear that his newest proposal would mirror the proposal approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2006, during the past Congress. "In my view, the quickest way to get this done is to start where we left off," Kennedy said. "We'll need to make common sense changes to the legislation to reflect what we've learned over the past year. But like last year, we will pass a strong, bipartisan and comprehensive bill that strikes a fair balance between enforcement, security and a path to earned citizenship."

The Senate bill ultimately failed in the last Congress because of deep divisions between the House and Senate over the best approach for immigration reform. The Senate-passed bill would have strengthened enforcement of immigration laws, but also would have established a guestworker program and allowed millions of illegal immigrants to achieve legal status. The immigration bill approved by the House focused entirely on enforcement.

Bush acknowledged that the issue of allowing illegal immigrants to gain citizenship once again will present a considerable challenge. "[L]ook, amnesty is not going to fly. There is not going to be automatic citizenship, it just won't work. People in the United States don't support that, and neither do I, nor will kicking people out of the United States work. It's not practical. It is not a realistic solution. . .And so, therefore, there's got to be a middle ground, a reasonable way to deal with the 12 million people or so that have been in our country for a period of time. And that's where a lot of the discussions are taking place."

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