Immigration Proposals Pass Test In Senate

Guest-Worker And Citizenship Provisions Survive

By Jonathan Weisman and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 17, 2006

A fragile Senate coalition backing a broad overhaul of the nation's immigration laws survived its first legislative test yesterday, beating back efforts to gut provisions to grant millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and hundreds of thousands of foreigners a new guest-worker permit.

But President Bush's efforts to win House conservatives to his immigration proposals still faced an uphill climb. A day after a prime-time televised address to the nation, Bush continued to make his case yesterday that immigration legislation must be comprehensive -- tightening control of the borders, offering a new temporary guest-worker visa to foreign workers, and offering most illegal immigrants a path to lawful employment and citizenship.

"In order for us to solve the problem of an immigration system that's not working, it's really important for Congress to understand . . . that the elements I described all go hand in hand," Bush said in a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

But House Republicans, who passed legislation last year to crack down on illegal immigration without offering new avenues to legal employment, were not budging.