Immigration Debate Returns to Senate This Week

WASHINGTON — The Senate dives back into the immigration debate this week, with a possible vote looming on a measure that would give temporary visas to farm workers who are in the United States illegally.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is billed as an emergency relief for farmers facing a labor shortage.

"Agriculture needs a consistent workforce. Without it, they can't plant, they can't prune, they can't pick, and they can't pack," Feinstein said last week after the measure was approved by a key committee. "The time has come for Congress to step up to the plate."

She said the measure is needed to stop more of them from moving operations to other countries.

"We need this legislation because in the last year, 13,280 farms in the United States have shut down and others have moved their operation to Mexico," she said.

The bill would allow farm employees who have worked in the United States over the past four years to work legally for the next five. It is capped at 1.35 million participants.

The future of the measure is uncertain. It was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee as an amendment to a large spending bill for the Iraq war. The House version, passed by committee, does not include a similar amendment, making it unclear whether it would survive to a final bill.

In addition, procedural maneuvers in the Senate could be used to block a vote on this and other amendments to the broader Iraq legislation.

Groups that oppose illegal immigration are lobbying lawmakers to kill the Feinstein measure.

"As far as we are concerned, it is an amnesty," said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations of Numbers USA, a group that supports lower levels of immigration.

Jenks said the amendment rewards employers and workers who have broken the law and sends the wrong message, encouraging more illegal immigration.

Numbers USA has been urging its members to call and e-mail lawmakers to oppose it.

Lobbying by this and other organizations, including the Federation for American Immigration Reform, helped to kill a major immigration overhaul last year that included a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said on the Senate floor on Monday that the Feinstein amendment and other immigration-related amendments are an effort to rush through a "back-door amnesty" without full evaluation by lawmakers and the American people.

The Feinstein bill "is very, very bad policy, bad legislation and should not become law," he said.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, opposes the Feinstein amendment and plans to vote against it, said his spokeswoman, Lindsay Mabry.

"Sen. Chambliss thinks this is not only the wrong vehicle to deal with this issue (the Iraq spending bill) but he believes this is absolutely the wrong approach," she said.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a liaison to the White House on immigration issues, said the Iraq spending measure should be passed "clean," without unrelated amendments, said his spokesman Brian Walsh.

"Immigration reform remains one of the senator's highest priorities, and he hopes the Democratic leadership will return to it this year, but it should not be used to delay this important bill for our troops," Walsh said.

Craig Regelbrugge, co-chair of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, an industry group that supports more visas, said that Feinstein's measure comes as the United States is losing market share to foreign producers in fresh fruit and vegetable production.

Nearly a third of the fresh fruit and a fifth of the fresh vegetables consumed in the United States are now imported, he said.

"The facts are stark. Unless Congress acts to ensure stable and legally authorized farm labor, we will soon be as dependent upon foreign nations to provide us food as we are energy," Regelbrugge said.

Another immigration measure, which would allow more temporary visas for low-skilled non-agricultural workers, was also approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee as a part of the Iraq spending bill.

Several business groups, including the hotel and lodging industries, have been pushing hard for an increase in the visas, known as H-2B's, which they say are critical to the upcoming summer vacation season.

On the Web:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein: feinstein.senate.gov

Numbers USA: www.numbersusa.com