’08 Candidates Weighing Consequences as They Take Sides on Immigration Plan
May 19, 2007
By MARC SANTORA
nytimes.com
The bipartisan immigration proposal being taken up by Congress is putting pressure on the leading presidential candidates to take a position on the issue, which could set them up for confrontations with influential constituencies within the two parties.
After the announcement of the bipartisan plan on Thursday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York Democrat, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor who is one of the Republican frontrunners, were initially noncommittal. Both suggested on Friday that they were open to supporting it, but only with major revisions to some of its main components.
Reflecting the complexity of the issue and the political caution surrounding it, neither of them matched the embrace of the legislation on Thursday by Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican.
Mr. McCain already faces a direct clash with another of the Republican candidates, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who has come out against the bill as he intensifies his efforts to win the support of conservatives who are wary of Mr. McCain and Mr. Giuliani. Mr. Romney’s opponents said his position had shifted from more moderate views that he voiced a few years ago.
On Friday, the Romney campaign unveiled a television commercial about illegal immigration that it said would run starting this weekend in New Hampshire and Iowa.
Mr. McCain’s position was also assailed on Friday by conservative commentators, who object in particular to the provisions of the legislation that could ultimately grant legal status to many of the estimated 12 million immigrants who are in the United States illegally.
Mr. Giuliani’s emphasis has been on whether the legislation would adequately protect the nation from terrorists who might enter the United States illegally.
In an appearance on Friday in Orlando, Fla., he supported the idea of compromise as long as it included a system for registering the people who are currently in America illegally and issuing them identification cards.
“I think this idea of working things out between the Democrats and the Republicans — and each side has to make some compromises in order to get there — then I can see a lot of flexibility there to get that accomplished,” he said.
Mrs. Clinton, an aide in her Senate office said, will focus on the provision that would de-emphasize family ties in granting visas, an element of the bill that has drawn fierce objections from many groups and elected officials representing Hispanics.
Mrs. Clinton will try to limit the impact on Hispanic immigrants by offering an amendment to reunite lawful permanent residents with their spouses and minor children by exempting those family members from the visa cap in the bill, the aide said.
When Mrs. Clinton was asked about the bill in New Orleans on Friday, however, she avoided stating any precise position and instead highlighted her support for both toughening border security and providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Democrats face a complicated nest of competing interests, including the outcry of some labor unions about the proposed guest worker program and concerns among Hispanic voters that the legislation will severely curtail the ability of families in poorer Latin American countries to settle legally in the United States.
Major labor unions are split on the issue, but there is widespread labor concern about the provision that would set up a temporary guest worker system with no chance of citizenship.
Not only could those workers take away jobs from Americans, these opponents said, but they could also become a permanent underclass.
“The proposal unveiled today includes a massive guest worker program that would allow employers to import hundreds of thousands” of temporary workers every year to perform permanent jobs throughout the economy, John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said in a statement.
John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina whose campaign has focused on trying to rally traditional union workers with a populist message, said he was pleased to see movement on immigration reform. But, in a statement, Mr. Edwards added, “I have some real concerns about parts of this bill, including the poorly conceived guest worker program.”
Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, was similarly cautious.
“Without modifications, the proposed bill could devalue the importance of family reunification, replace the current group of undocumented immigrants with a new undocumented population consisting of guest workers who will overstay their visas, and potentially drive down wages of American workers,” Mr. Obama said in a statement.
Democrats and Republicans must calculate how their choices will affect them politically, not just in early states like Iowa but also in states like New York, Florida, California and Texas that have large immigrant populations.
Muzaffar Chishti, the director of the Migration Policy Institute’s office at the New York University law school, said that the pressure was going to quickly build for everyone to declare firm positions.
“Next week is going to be very, very critical,” Mr. Chishti said. “The pressure on the senators between now and Monday is going to be intense.”
Michael Cooper, Steven Greenhouse, Patrick Healy and Michael Luo contributed reporting.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company |
