GOP pushes tough laws on migrants

WASHINGTON -- Driven by constituents, House Republicans have pushed legislation to tighten control of US borders and to clamp down on the hiring of illegal immigrants, without offering new avenues for such immigrants to find lawful employment.

The immigration issue has opened divisions among Republicans. House leaders have been pitted against the White House, business groups have aligned against congressional allies, legislators have even crossed swords against peers in adjoining districts.

President Bush and his Republican Party chairman, Ken Mehlman, have implored House leaders not to take up what they call an ''enforcement-only" bill. They have argued that such a measure could jeopardize years of Republican outreach to Latinos.

New enforcement measures are bound to fail, they have argued, unless immigrants drawn to the economic opportunities of the United States are given some chance to work here legally.

But just such a bill is barreling toward a House vote this week, Republican leaders have promised. Advocates, including the Republican leadership, say that action is needed immediately to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and that such efforts should not be held up as lawmakers wrangle over the intricacies of the president's guest-worker program.

''With all due respect, this is not a political problem to be managed," said Representative J. D. Hayworth, a Republican from Arizona. ''This is an invasion to be stopped."

Representative Jeff Flake, another Republican from Arizona and a conservative who rarely disagrees with Hayworth, all but accused Hayworth of grandstanding. Flake linked his colleague to Tom Tancredo, a Republican of Colorado, who is known in Congress as an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration.

''Hayworth has gone Tancredo on us," said Flake, who agreed with Bush that a guest-worker program must be part of any immigration bill.

Hayworth said that his position, not Flake's, represented the views of his border state. ''I have not been Tancredo'ed," he said. ''I've been Arizona'ed."

Mehlman, who has led the Republican efforts to reach out to minority voters, tried not to confront House Republicans directly. But he repeated his concern about any bill that clamped down on border security without offering an outlet for legal employment.

''There's no question you have to start at the border, but if the House bill stops at the border, you are not addressing the nation's problem of illegal immigration and homeland security," Mehlman said in an interview.

At issue is a broad bill, drafted by the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, that would make tough changes to immigration law.

Latin organizations themselves have called the problem of illegal immigration a crisis.

About 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States.

The number of petitions for judicial review of deportation orders jumped from 1,654 in 2001 to 10,681 in 2004, according to the House Judiciary Committee.

Under the bill, employers would be mandated to confirm the authenticity of employees' Social Security numbers against a national database of numbers.

The measure would end the ''catch-and-release" policy for immigrants other than Mexicans caught entering the country illegally. All illegal immigrants apprehended at the border would be detained, and deportation processes would be streamlined.

Criminal penalties for smuggling immigrants would be stiffened, with new mandatory minimum sentences. The business lobby is not happy, either. In a letter sent last week to the House Judiciary Committee chairman, F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Republican of Wisconsin, R. Bruce Josten, the executive vice president of the US Chamber of Commerce, expressed disappointment that there is no temporary worker program and called the mandate on employer verification impractical.