Bush urges compromise

President calls on senators to resolve immigration reform debate, with hopes for a bill by next month

BY TOM BRUNE | Newsday Washington Bureau

April 26, 2006

WASHINGTON - At a White House meeting with Senate leaders yesterday, President George W. Bush gave his biggest boost yet to a compromise immigration reform bill that stalled in a partisan procedural fight in the Senate earlier this month.

In the hourlong meeting with more than a dozen Senate supporters of the compromise bill from both parties, Bush led a talk on how to get the legislation out of the Senate by Memorial Day.

Excluded from the meeting were senators opposed to the bill's expansive guest-worker program and path to citizenship for illegal workers already here.

"It's important that we reform a system that is not working," said Bush, flanked by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "And I strongly believe that we have a chance to get an immigration bill that is comprehensive in nature to my desk before the end of this year."

Bush also personally thanked the bill's main sponsors, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).

"We still have a ways to go," Kennedy said afterward, "but I appreciate very much the president's involvement and his willingness to be engaged."

Kennedy and others acknowledged any bill with guest-worker and citizenship provisions faces opposition from House leaders, whose bill focuses only on law enforcement.

The Senate and House bills must be reconciled in conference, and Democrats fear they'll have to vote on an enforcement-only bill. Those concerns were underlined by a news report that House Majority Leader John Boehner said the Senate compromise that would allow undocumented workers to apply for citizenship is a "big mistake."

But Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee that produced the bill, said he thought Bush indicated "we'll have his support when we get into conference."