Hastert eyes immigration

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House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said yesterday his chamber will work to produce an immigration bill this year, even as the White House signaled a new emphasis on immigration law enforcement as part of selling President Bush's proposal.

The Illinois Republican placed immigration near the top of the list of priorities when Congress returns from its August recess, just below the must-pass spending bills and just before Social Security. He said any immigration bill must mix enforcement, a program for new foreign workers and a solution to the illegal aliens now here.

But Mr. Hastert sent mixed messages about how to address illegal aliens, saying amnesty is not the answer but acknowledging that some illegal aliens have been in the United States for decades.

"There has to be some accountability for those folks," he said. "A lot of them have been here 20, 25 years, they're integrated into the system, their children are American citizens, and quite frankly a lot of those people don't have a home to go back to in another country, so we need to reconcile that. I'm not sure how we do that."

Mr. Hastert also said, though, that "there are a lot of terms for how people get citizenship, but frankly what I have found, any time that you do an amnesty you just put people in the front of the line and cut out people who have come through the process legally."

Unlike House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Mr. Hastert has not spoken often about immigration. His comments came at a briefing to discuss the House's first seven months this year and its schedule for the fall.

In listing the schedule, Mr. Hastert put immigration right below finishing the appropriations bills, and he sounded more optimistic about it than he did about getting a Social Security bill.

"We are going to work on immigration. It's going to take awhile," he said. "It's going to take a lot of hearings and a lot of discussion hopefully on a bipartisan basis to try to get that done."

President Bush on Wednesday, in a closed-door meeting with House Republicans, called for action this year, but Mr. DeLay's office said it was impossible to set an exact timetable.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican, would shepherd any bill through. A spokesman said yesterday that the committee plans to work on immigration legislation this fall and said all options are on the table.