Switching priorities, he only touches on guest-worker plan
- Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Washington -- President Bush promised a renewed push for changes in immigration law Monday, reversing the priorities he had set out nearly two years ago by emphasizing tougher border enforcement and mentioning his controversial guest-worker program almost as an afterthought.

Bush joins several congressional Republicans in Congress, including several likely presidential candidates, who intend to make an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws a priority heading into the 2006 midterm elections.
"Illegal immigration is a serious challenge," Bush told a gathering of border enforcement officials in Tucson. "And our responsibility is clear. We are going to protect the border."

Calls for tougher border enforcement resonate in both parties and with the public, but the problem of how to deal with the estimated 11 million people now in the United States illegally deeply divides Republicans and poses an enormous political and practical quandary.

As if to illustrate the problem, Bush appeared with Arizona's two Republican senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, who have proposed radically different approaches to changing an immigration system that all sides agree is badly broken.

McCain's plan, co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, emphasizes a new guest worker program. Kyl's proposal, co-sponsored by Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, calls for deporting millions of people residing in the country illegally in order for them to apply for legal guest worker status.

Pushing for tougher border enforcement might please conservatives, but it risks alienating two critical Republican constituencies: the growing Latino voting bloc that Bush has courted assiduously throughout his presidency and the nation's business community, which provides the lobbying and financial muscle Republicans rely on to pass legislation.

Many conservatives, particularly in the Republican-dominated House, want to focus exclusively on a border crackdown; other Republicans and many Democrats insist that such a crackdown is futile without also enlarging the legal avenues for immigrants seeking work.

Bush did not embrace the deportation idea. He also insisted, late in Monday's speech, that the borders cannot be controlled without expanding the avenues for legal entry.

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