LA Times: EEVS for all Employees?

Immigration screening could snag too many workers

A system to verify the legality of every employee within 3 years -- key to the Senate's measure -- is controversial.

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Jim Puzzanghera
Times Staff Writers

May 29, 2007

WASHINGTON — As a child, Traci Hong came from South Korea to the United States as a legal immigrant. Fifteen years ago, she became a U.S. citizen.

Yet in March, when Hong, now 37, applied for a congressional staff job, an employee screening system that is the linchpin of the Senate's immigration legislation told a different story: It flagged her as being here illegally.

Hong spent eight days navigating the bureaucracy to correct a database error and convince officials that she was entitled to work here — and she's an immigration lawyer, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and its law school.

"It really made me realize how difficult it would be for someone who does not have a legal education, higher education, English skills and an understanding employer who allows them to take time off," she said.

The screening system, called Basic Pilot, is run by the Department of Homeland Security. So far, it's being used by only about 16,700 employers — 2,100 or so in California — out of 7 million nationwide.

But it would dramatically expand into a national electronic employment verification system under the Senate proposal; within 18 months, it could be used to check every new hire in the country. As the legislation is written, all 150 million workers in the U.S. would have to submit to the checks within three years.

Supporters call Basic Pilot an efficient blueprint to increase enforcement of laws that bar the hiring of illegal immigrants. It is a central component of what has been dubbed the "grand bargain" between Democrats and Republicans on immigration; in fact, the bill's proposed guest worker program couldn't begin until the verification system was capable of screening every new hire in the country.

"That's going to be very hard. It's complex," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), a leading backer of the bill. "It's going to have to work."

But opponents — who include conservatives, small businesses, human resource managers and civil liberties groups — are dubious. They say the current program infringes on privacy, doesn't stop identity fraud and will become more expensive and cumbersome as it expands, bogged down by technical problems and a database with inaccurate information.

"We're handing over the power to the federal government to tell us yes, we can work, or no, we can't work, and because the database isn't what it should be, there are people who are going to be told they can't work," said Tyler Moran, employment policy director for the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for immigrant rights. "This is going to affect every single worker in the country, and this is going to affect every business in the country."

Businesses check eligibility by submitting information from an I-9 form, required of all new hires, which includes Social Security and other documentation showing an employee's right to live and work in the U.S.

If the information is valid, the system sends the business a confirmation. If not, a "tentative nonconfirmation" is returned, and the business asks the employee to provide additional proof of identity or citizenship. Files are even checked by hand before the government finally identifies an employee as illegal.

Although the Internet-based process usually takes seconds, any glitch can take days to resolve, said Homeland Security spokesman Chris Bentley. About 200 businesses join the program each week; so far this year, Basic Pilot has processed 1.7 million inquiries — the same as in all of 2006.

Even as more businesses join the program, Bentley said, the system's error rate of 5% is falling. But a Social Security Administration report last year estimated that 17.8 million Social Security records, or 4.1%, contained discrepancies that could tie up the system.

Traci Hong, for example, was stopped because her records, like those of 7% of naturalized foreigners, failed to indicate that she had been granted U.S. citizenship. A change in immigration status, marriage or divorce needs to be reported to Social Security, said Moran of the National Immigration Law Center.

Basic Pilot has become popular as workplace enforcement becomes a grass-roots issue. Communities across the country — including in Mission Viejo; Valley Park, Mo.; and Hazleton, Pa. — have passed laws requiring screening for city employees.

This year, lawmakers in 41 states are considering legislation to strengthen workplace enforcement of immigration laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The Tennessee Senate approved a bill this spring mandating the use of Basic Pilot by all employers in the state; Rhode Island lawmakers are considering a similar measure.

Proponents say it is the most affordable way to crack down on illegal immigrants.

"The best thing we can do in terms of workplace enforcement is expanding electronic verification," said Jessica Vaughan, a senior policy analyst at the conservative Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, calling the program "a bargain when you look at what we spend on unmanned drones and sensors along the southern border."

Managers at Swift & Co. meatpacking plants liked the system too when they signed up in 1997, a year after it began. They considered it an efficient way to screen their 15,000 workers in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas and Utah.

Then federal immigration officials raided six plants in December. Swift lost 1,232 illegal workers — each of whom, the company said at the time, had been verified by Basic Pilot.

The raids, Swift spokesman Sean McHugh said last week, exposed a "fatal flaw": Since the databases it taps don't include photographs, it's impossible to tell whether the person submitting a Social Security number is the one to whom it was issued. Although Homeland Security files contain photos, federal law bars agencies from sharing Social Security numbers — so staff can't compare files.

"What you see now more and more are valid IDs used under fraudulent circumstances," McHugh said.

Homeland Security intends to add photos and biometric information, such as fingerprints, to Basic Pilot, Bentley said, but such developments are still being tested.

Personnel managers and business groups argue that the system's error rate is higher than Homeland Security acknowledges — 15% rather than 5% — and would rise exponentially if the system were expanded to include data, such as photographs, that could prove difficult to transmit and process.

"The free flow of labor and the ability to bring people on board quickly will be highly disrupted by this," said Susan R. Meisinger, president and chief executive of the Society for Human Resource Management, which has 200,000 members, including about 15,000 in California. "Human resources shouldn't be America's Border Patrol agents."

Employee screening, she said, should be done by private vendors rather than by a government system that's likely to get tied up in political wrangling as costs rise.

This year alone, the system cost $114 million to upgrade. It would cost $405 million to expand the system to handle 55 million new workers over the course of five years, according to a December estimate by the Congressional Budget Office. Re-verifying the 150 million workers nationwide would probably cost much more.

Traci Hong's employer, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), is in a prime position to shape the program's future — and also has concerns.

Lofgren, who heads the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, refugees, border security and international law, said she was worried about which government agencies would have access to the database without a warrant.

She also said the system's error rate would mistakenly shut people out of their jobs. "We will hear from them in our offices if they are told they're being fired because of a database glitch," she said.

But she and other Democrats also recognize that a new, stricter workplace screening system is necessary for any immigration legislation to win GOP support. They prefer that the government avoid relying too much on Basic Pilot, and instead study what the best system would be, then launch it in phases, perhaps with the support of private firms that can develop and deploy the technology more quickly.

"This is an important thing to do — I'm for doing it — but there are important technical and political questions we have to answer first," Lofgren said.

From AILA: Senate Immigration Bill Update

May 25, 2007

Last night, the Senate wrapped up its first week of debate on the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Reform Act (S. 1348), the negotiated comprehensive immigration reform bill. The AILA Advocacy department would like to extend a warm thank you to everyone who took time out of their busy schedules to call their senators, sometimes several times a day, to voice support for, or opposition to, the amendments under consideration. We know how hard it can be to get through when the switchboards are flooded with calls, as they certainly were this week. Yet the persistence of dedicated callers made a difference: the Senate managed to defeat several troubling amendments and adopt a number of positive reforms. For a run down of votes and floor action this week, please view our archive of CIR Daily Updates.

Next Step: Memorial Day Recess--Building Momentum, Voicing Support
The debate, however, is far from over. Before the Senate resumes consideration of S. 1348, Congress will adjourn and many legislators will return to their home states and districts for the Memorial Day recess (May 26-June 3). This recess could have a critical impact on the outcome of CIR legislation, and it is crucial that AILA members meet with their legislators or district staff next week to voice support for fair and meaningful immigration reform. Restrictionist groups are already mobilizing to inundate district offices and Town Hall meetings with anti-CIR messages. AILA members must take responsibility for making pro-immigrant, pro-CIR voices heard!

The Advocacy department will send Town Hall Meeting Alerts later today to AILA members whose legislators have scheduled public meetings. To set up individual meetings with your legislators or their district staff, simply use your legislators' district office contact information, available on Contact Congress.

After the Recess: Prepare for Renewed Debate, Vote on Final Passage
The Senate will resume debate during the week of June 4, when we expect to see a number of extremely important amendments brought to the floor for consideration. These amendments could make or break the Senate bill. A vote on final passage is expected to occur sometime toward the end of the week, around June 7-8. Please prepare to take urgent action during the second week of floor debate by perusing AILA's CIR resources and programming your senators' phone numbers into your cell phone.

CIR ALERT FROM CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY

 

May 23, 2007 – 2:17 p.m.

Senate Poised to Cut Back Guest Worker Program

The Senate appears poised to sharply reduce the number of temporary visas that could be granted to guest workers under an immigration overhaul.

The compromise bill crafted by a bipartisan group of senators last week in concert with the Bush administration would authorize 400,000 to 600,000 visas a year.

An amendment offered by Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., which appeared likely to win adoption this afternoon, would trim the total to 200,000 a year.

Senate Republicans caucused today and voiced concerns about the decision by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to have the chamber debate and vote on one amendment at a time. Several GOP senators complained that such a process would effectively limit the number of amendments that can be offered.

“I think it is critical for the sake of the bill itself that leadership allow ample time for amendments,” Larry E. Craig, R-Idaho, said.

Charles M. Miller | Miller Law Offices |12441 Ventura Boulevard | Studio City, California | Tel 818 508 9005
| Fax 818 508 9458 | California State Bar Certified Immigration Law Specialist | www.millerlawoffices.com

This email is confidential, privileged and/or attorney work product for the sole use of the intended recipient.

 

NY Times: Senate OKs Temp Workers

May 22, 2007

Senate Keeps Worker Program in Immigration Bill

By ROBERT PEAR and MICHAEL LUO

WASHINGTON, May 23 — The Senate this afternoon endorsed the concept of allowing up to 600,000 temporary workers a year to enter the United States under a broad immigration-reform bill, rejecting an amendment that would have scrapped the worker program.

The amendment, offered by Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, was rejected by a vote of 64 to 31 as the senators began what promise to be long deliberations on a final bill.

Many more amendments are to be offered, since lawmakers from both parties have called for substantial changes in the legislation and forced Senate leaders to extend debate beyond the Memorial Day recess.

The final form of the Senate legislation is uncertain at this point, given the many crosscurrents buffeting the bill. But the vote on the Dorgan amendment was an important early test, as the temporary-worker program is a key element of the legislation.

The intense lobbying since the bill emerged last week from three months of bipartisan negotiations is likely to be just a sample of what lawmakers will hear as they return home to their districts for the Memorial Day recess. And even assuming the Senate passes a bill, it will have to be reconciled with the House version, and the House has emphasized border security more and aid to immigrants less than has the Senate.

The Senate bill overcame its first hurdle on Monday, a simple vote to begin debate on the hugely contentious measure.

The decision to extend debate followed four hours of speeches in which supporters and opponents of the bill agreed that the nation had lost control of its borders but disagreed on almost everything else.

“There just simply is not enough time on this massive, massively important piece of legislation to do it all” in one week, said the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada.

The outlook for the bill is uncertain. President Bush strongly supports the measure, which incorporates many of his ideas. In the House, Democratic leaders say the president will have to deliver dozens of Republican votes that would be needed for passage.

Some senators who voted to take up the legislation said they did not support the bill in its current form but hoped to improve it with amendments.

The measure, as it now stands, would offer legal status to most of the 12 million illegal immigrants, strengthen security at the border and increase penalties for employers of illegal immigrants.

Democrats plan to offer amendments to eliminate or scale back provisions under which hundreds of thousands of temporary foreign workers would be admitted to the United States each year.

Critics contend that this program would create an underclass of immigrant workers who could adversely affect the wages and working conditions of Americans in some industries.

Republicans have drafted amendments to scale back the legalization program and to designate English as the national language.

Leading the opposition to the bill were three Republicans, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and David Vitter of Louisiana.

Mr. Sessions said the measure had been written behind closed doors, with no hearings or review by the Senate Judiciary Committee and no cost estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.

“The American people were not in those meetings,” Mr. Sessions said. “There are 85 senators who have no idea what’s in the bill.”

If Senate leaders had pushed the bill to final passage in one week, Mr. Sessions said, that would have been “a railroad job, for sure.”

Mr. Vitter said the bill offered “pure unadulterated amnesty.”

“If the American people knew what was in this bill,” he said, “there would be a massive outcry against it.”

Mr. Bunning said the bill would “reward lawbreakers” with “a large-scale get-out-of-jail-free pass.”

The chief Democratic architect of the bill, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, defended it as a prudent, urgently needed compromise.

“Our security is threatened in the post-9/11 world by borders out of control,” Mr. Kennedy said. “Our values are tarnished when we allow 12 million human beings to live in the dark shadows of abuse as undocumented immigrants. Our competitiveness in a global economy is at risk when our employers cannot find the able workers they need.”

Mr. Reid criticized the measure on several grounds.

“The bill impacts families in a number of ways that I believe are unwise,” he said. “The bill also allows 400,000 low-skilled workers to come to America for three two-year terms, but requires them to go home for a year in between.

This is impractical both for the workers and for the American employers who need a stable, reliable work force.”

Moreover, Mr. Reid said he feared that the bill would create “a permanent underclass of people who are here to work in low-wage low-skill jobs, but do not have a chance to put down roots or benefit from the opportunities of American citizenship.”

The majority leader also criticized a provision under which illegal immigrants who gained legal status would have to return to their home countries to apply for green cards, or permanent resident visas.

This requirement “will cause needless hardship for immigrants and needless bureaucracy for the government,” Mr. Reid said.

Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, said he was not trying to block the bill, but wanted time to understand it.

“I don’t know any piece of legislation that touches as many people in as many ways as this bill,” Mr. Corker said.

With its vote on Monday, the Senate agreed to limit debate, by invoking cloture, on a motion to take up the bill. The vote was 69 to 23, nine more votes than needed.

Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, said: “I will vote for cloture, but not because I support the underlying bill. I will support cloture only because I hope we can significantly improve this bill.”

Thirty-eight Democrats, 30 Republicans and one independent voted to begin consideration of the bill. Four Democrats, 18 Republicans and one independent voted no.

The Texas senators, John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, both Republicans, voted no, as did the Montana senators, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, who are Democrats.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who helped forge the “grand bargain” on immigration, said he would make every effort to “keep the deal in place.”

He had harsh words for lawmakers who might try to block the bill without offering a solid alternative.

“Doing nothing is a national security nightmare for this country,” Mr. Graham said. “If your goal is to stop this bill and you don’t have an alternative that will secure our borders and deal with illegal immigration, you are not helping the country.”

In the section that the Dorgan amendment sought to undo, the bill would provide visas for 400,000 temporary workers a year. The number could be increased to 600,000 in response to demand from employers.

Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, said he would offer an amendment to limit the number to 200,000 a year.

The bill, as written, “puts us on a par with Kuwait or other countries who just depend on foreign workers and have a second-class group of workers doing inferior jobs but not having any real rights or privileges,” Mr. Bingaman said.

Republicans insisted that temporary workers should truly be temporary.

But Mr. Bingaman said, “This idea of bringing people for two years, sending them back for a year, bringing them back for two years and then sending them back for a year is nonsensical.”

In writing the measure, senators bypassed the Judiciary Committee, where immigration bills normally originate.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, said, “The bill we have before us is a product of closed-door meetings between the administration and Republican senators, which was then put to Democratic senators as a framework for further negotiations.”

 

Wall Street Journal Online: Boomers and Immigrants

Good Life of Boomers Tied to Better Life for Immigrants

by Miriam Jordan
Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The quality of life for some 80 million graying baby boomers in the U.S. may depend in large part on the fortunes of another high-profile demographic group: millions of mostly Hispanic immigrants and their children.

With a major part of the nation's population entering its retirement years and birth rates falling domestically, the shortfall in the work force will be filled by immigrants and their offspring, experts say. How that group fares economically in the years ahead could have a big impact on everything from the kind of medical services baby boomers receive to the prices they can get for their homes.

Immigrants and baby boomers are two groups whose destinies are converging in the next 20 years," says Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California. "Baby boomers will surrender their economic role to this generation of immigrants and their children," who will evolve into a critical pool of laborers and taxpayers, he says.

Prof. Myers, author of the recent book "Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America," is among a crop of academics studying the link between the giant generation born between 1946 and 1964 and newcomers to the U.S., mainly Latin American immigrants.

The U.S. is undergoing a seismic demographic change that will kick in over the next decade or so. In California, for example, there were 9.7 million baby boomers between the ages of 40 and 49 in 2005, who accounted for 51% of the prime working-age population. By 2020, they will be 55 to 74 years old, with most boomers on the brink of retirement or about to plunge into it.

The weight of this aging population will swell relative to the pool of working-age people. The ratio of senior citizens to prime-working-age people, 25 to 64 years old, will jump 30% in the decade between 2010 and 2020 and an additional 29% in the following decade, according to Prof. Myers. All told, the ratio of seniors to working-age residents, including immigrants, will grow from 250 seniors per 1,000 working-age people in 2010 to 411 per 1,000 in 2030, he calculates.

This hefty burden will be hard for the economy to absorb, and will require some difficult choices. Those may include tax increases, benefit cuts for seniors, increases in the taxable income of working-age residents, as well as efforts to attract more immigrants to fill out the work force.

At a hearing on New York's Ellis Island last month, Prof. Myers told congressional leaders that the current influx of immigrants, about 1.5 million annually, is softening the impact of the bulging population of seniors relative to working-age adults by about a quarter from what it would be without immigration. Boosting immigration would relieve more pressure, he and other experts say.

But given the nation's polarizing debate over illegal immigration, the U.S. is unlikely to implement policies to attract many newcomers in the near future. That suggests that one of the country's most pressing tasks may be improving the earnings prospects of its youngsters, especially Latino youth, who will have to carry much of the financial burden for the supersize boomer generation.

One of the challenges is that Americans don't seem to be aware of the vital role the next generation will play. The predominantly white senior citizens and boomers, who account for the majority of the nation's decision makers, often vote against measures to boost services or raise taxes for schools increasingly populated by Hispanics. That's a problem, because better education is the ticket to prosperity for those on whose tax dollars boomers will rely.

Ron Crouch, director of Kentucky's State Data Center at the University of Louisville, makes about 150 presentations a year to groups including educators, high-tech industry leaders and government officials to paint a picture of what the U.S. will look like as an aging white population converges with a growing population of immigrants and minority youth.

"If I'm an old white person, I better be interested in how these young, Hispanic kids are doing," Mr. Crouch told an audience attending the National School Board Association conference in San Francisco last month.

Between 1990 and 2005, blacks and Hispanics, including immigrants, accounted for 80% of all population growth in the U.S. They accounted for all the population growth among those 45 and younger, according to the Census Bureau. That represents both the younger end of the current work force and the nation's future labor pool.

This maturing younger population will need to be ready for opportunities far beyond the fields, construction sites and nursing homes that employed many of their parents, Mr. Crouch says. They will also need to be "architects, business owners, doctors and scientists," he says.

More broadly, the U.S. economy needs enough skilled workers to stay competitive. But current statistics bode ill for the future of the country's youth -- and the aging generation whose fate is tied to theirs.

In Georgia, for example, minorities accounted for two-thirds of the population growth between 1990 and 2000. Between 2000 and 2005, they represented 80% of that growth. Yet, only 12% of black fourth-grade students and 17% of Hispanic fourth-graders are proficient in reading, compared with 38% of whites, according to a report by the Center for American Progress, a public policy think tank.

In California, already a majority minority state, 11% of African-American and 9% of Hispanic fourth-graders are proficient in reading, compared with 36% of their white peers.

The achievement gap seen in elementary school is unlikely to close by the time most students enter high school. Down the road, only slightly more than half of all blacks and Hispanics graduate from high school in four years, compared with 78% of whites.

For baby boomers, the economic status of the new generation will affect more than the kind of quality of services the government available. It will also affect the value of a major asset for many boomers: their homes.

Prof. Myers's studies show a pattern of upward mobility into homeownership by immigrants and their children. By 2005, four of the top 10 surnames among home buyers nationwide were Spanish, up from only two in 2000. But young Latinos will become the largest market for the homes of white boomers as the latter seek to downsize or cash out in the near future.

A less-advantaged younger generation is less likely to be able to afford to pay top dollar for retirees' homes. "We need to cultivate new home buyers; it requires moving more Latino kids through high school and college," says Prof. Myers. "It's not for the good of Latinos. It's for the good of the nation."

 

 

Washington Post: Reid Forces New Senate Debate on Immigration

He Would Revisit 2006, But GOP Is Warier Now

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 10, 2007; A04

With bipartisan talks on immigration near a standstill, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) moved yesterday to bring last year's broad overhaul of immigration laws back to the floor of the Senate next week, appealing to President Bush to save what could be his last hope for a major second-term domestic achievement.

The legislation -- which couples a border security crackdown with a guest-worker program and new avenues for undocumented immigrants to work legally in the country -- passed the Senate a year ago this month with the support of 62 members, 23 of them Republican, only to die in the House. With Democrats now in control of Congress and with the president eager for an accomplishment, immigrant rights groups believe the prospects for a final deal are far better this year.

But Senate Republicans, even those who helped craft last year's bill, say the political environment has shifted decisively against that measure and toward a tougher approach. Four Republican architects of the 2006 bill released a letter yesterday, pleading with Reid to hold off on the debate while bipartisan talks continue on new legislation.

"Last year's bill is not the solution for this year," said Sen. Mel Martinez (Fla.), one of those architects who is now general chairman of the Republican Party.

But Reid decided to force the issue, devoting the Senate's next two weeks to hammering out a comprehensive bill. If negotiators reach a deal on a new proposal in the coming days, he promised to bring it to a vote. "There are all kinds of excuses people could offer," Reid said. "But how can we have anything that's more fair than taking a bill that overwhelmingly passed the Senate on a bipartisan basis, and using that as the instrument" to build a new version?

Immigration poses political peril for both parties. It has badly split GOP-leaning business groups eager for immigrant labor from party-base conservatives furious at what they see as an invasion of illegal immigrants. Democrats must bridge a chasm between old-line labor groups that fear that immigrant workers are driving down wages and burgeoning service-worker unions that see low-wage workers as the backbone of a new labor movement.

Both parties are battling for the allegiance of Latino voters. Indeed, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) offered immigrant groups virtual veto power over this year's bill.

"Unless the stakeholders are going to believe that it's worthy of their support, no matter what we do here in the United States Senate, it isn't going to work," he said.

And, this year, the issue is tangled in presidential politics. One White House hopeful, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), has all but renounced a career-long stance favorable to immigrant rights. And the co-author of last year's bill, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), has been largely absent from this year's negotiations, as he soft-pedals his pro-immigration stance.

McCain spokeswoman Eileen McMenamin said yesterday that the senator remains committed to a bill that would strengthen border controls, back guest workers and offer illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

But Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said McCain's absence from the negotiations has been "a big factor" in the rising tide of Republican opposition. Another factor is a president whose authority on Capitol Hill is in steep decline. "The president's approval ratings do not exactly create a dynamic political force," Durbin said.

In that vacuum, Republican senators who opposed last year's bill have emerged as key players in this year's battle, and they have already succeeded in raising issues that were barely discussed in 2006. Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), an ardent opponent of last year's bill, said the measure got only so many GOP votes because Republican senators expected the final bill to be far tougher after emerging from negotiations with House GOP hard-liners. With Democrats now in charge of the House, Senate Republicans are taking a tougher stand, he said.

Senators are nearing agreement on some of the most contentious issues. Once again, an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants would probably get new avenues to find legal work and earn citizenship once they have established a strong work record, cleared a criminal-background check, and paid penalties and back taxes. Beefed-up border security would be linked to tougher penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants and to new tools for businesses to screen job applicants.

But Republicans and Democrats are deeply divided over the flow of new immigrants. Republicans, with the White House's backing, are proposing a three-year temporary-worker program that would allow 400,000 new workers to enter the country each year, provided they return to their home countries once their visas expire. A much smaller number, perhaps 20,000, would be able to apply for a work visa that could lead to legal permanent residency.

Even more controversial is a GOP effort to change current laws that allow legal U.S. residents to bring relatives into the country. Republicans want to drop large categories from that family immigration system, blocking the inflow of adult children and siblings of U.S. residents and capping the number of parents allowed to migrate. That move would make room for more skilled workers and educated professionals.

Last year's bill would have allowed guest workers to remain in the country indefinitely and work toward citizenship.

With the divisions so deep, Republican Senate leadership aides privately said that the bill is "on life support." Democrats were no more optimistic. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the fate of comprehensive immigration legislation rests with Bush.

"The president has got to be personally involved," Leahy said. "He cannot just send up Cabinet members and ask them to speak with a few members of the president's party and think that that's going to get you through."