United States Senate majority leader Bill Frist is hopeful that a full vote in the upper house would clear a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes provisions for hefty increases in the H1 B visas mainly availed by Indian IT professionals.
Ahead of a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee to look at immigration issues like 'regularising' the nearly 12 million mostly Hispanic illegal aliens, Frist said on Sunday that he hoped that the bill would clear the full Senate this week, or before Congress heads for a two-week Easter recess.
But there are those in the House of Representatives who have rubbished Senate Judiciary Committee's proposals, especially on the guest worker programme and an 'amnesty plan' that would eventually lead to citizenship for illegals.
Some House members are saying the lower House may not even agree to a conference committee to iron out differences in the language of the immigration reform legislation.
The House has nothing comparable to what the Senate Judiciary Committee has recommended by way of highly skilled visas like the H1B. One apprehension is that this proposal will be left behind at the Conference stage as it happened last year.
But immediate focus is on the illegals and the Senate will have to first come to terms with this. Divisions within the Republicans is even more glaring. "I do not think we should legislate a track that gives a privileged status to people who broke the law," Frist said.
"If somebody is here and they are a felon or multiple misdemeanors or somebody who is not working, someone who has been here for a year... yes, I think they had have to go back home," said Frist, the potential 2008 presidential candidate.
Senior members of the party are playing down the talk of a political filibuster by the Republicans. "It would be political suicide for our party to filibuster a comprehensive solution to a real problem facing America," remarked Senator Lindsey Graham, adding, "It would be political suicide to ignore there are 11 million people, illegally undocumented, who are trying to work and add value to our country."
Adding more vigour to the ongoing daily debate is a proposal by some lawmakers to make English the official language of the US. "Multi-lingual ballots encourage a linguistic divide in our nation and discourage law-abiding immigrants from learning English to naturalise and assimilate in to our society," said Congressman Steve King of Iowa, who has raised this issue and prompted 56 others to propose language bills.
In the Senate also, lawmakers are pointing out that any immigration bill has to go hand in hand with the English issue, which analysts said will further fuel the debate.
