Immigration debate nears Hill standoff - Politico.com

Immigration debate nears Hill standoff - Politico.com: "Immigration debate nears Hill standoff By: Carrie Budoff April 30, 2007 06:03 PM EST President Bush spoke over the weekend of his confidence that the country 'can have a serious, civil and conclusive debate' on immigration reform." But on the ground level -- a negotiating room on Capitol Hill, where Senate staff members have been trying to craft a bipartisan bill -- the atmosphere late last week was far from that. A meeting between Republican and Democratic staff ended abruptly. There was a disagreement over which set of principles the group was using as a starting point. And the GOP staff walked out, according to three aides briefed on the Thursday meeting. Negotiations are expected to resume this week -- a signal that the "meltdown," as one GOP aide put it, was not entirely crippling. But the sometimes volatile talks underline the hurdles that remain for Bush and congressional leaders as they attempt to pass a bill out of the Senate by the end of the month. "It is getting harder because now we are starting to talk about details," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has been involved in the negotiations. The pressure is rising. Thousands of immigrant activists are expected to rally Tuesday in cities across the country. Bush -- who devoted his Saturday radio address, as well as a commencement address at Miami Dade College, to the issue -- will continue his personal appeal for comprehensive reform in a speech Thursday to Hispanic evangelicals in Washington. A bipartisan Senate bill remains elusive, but Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is sticking to his mid-May timetable. "There are a number of people on both sides of the aisle working in good faith to find broader consensus on immigration," said Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley. "But one way or another, the leader firmly intends to start the floor debate the week of May 14." Bush administration officials and Senate negotiators have spent hours behind closed doors over the past two months. The meetings started at the highest levels. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff huddled for weeks with a dozen Republican senators to draw up a set of working principles. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the Democrats' point person on immigration, eventually joined the group with several other senators from his party.