Splits Over Immigration Reform On Display From Coast to Coast

Bloomberg said that about 500,000 of the 3 million immigrants in New York arrived illegally. The foreign workforce must expand at all levels, from farm workers to scientists, he said. "The economics are very simple," Bloomberg said. "We need more workers than we have."

Dan Eichenlaub, who owns a landscaping firm in Pittsburgh, described how he lost $500,000 in revenue two years ago because a glitch prevented him from hiring the seasonal foreign workers who sustain his business.

However, Louis Barletta, mayor of Hazleton, Pa., told the Senate panel that illegal residents have boosted the crime rate and drained scarce resources. "We must dig deep into the city's accounts to pay for illegal immigrants," said Barletta, who wants the federal government to deport them.

To help counter that view, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who joined Specter at the hearing, noted that in a Fourth of July ceremony in Iraq, 76 U.S. soldiers from 27 countries had been sworn in as American citizens.

The House hearing in San Diego took a different tone, starting with its title, "Border Vulnerabilities to Terrorist Threats." Republican members of the International Relations subcommittee on terrorism emphasized the dangers of a porous border and touted the House immigration bill's emphasis on greater border enforcement.

"We put the border gangs out of business, because we took away their mobility," said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), praising a multilayer fence built on the Mexican border south of San Diego. The structure is similar to a 700-mile fence called for in the House bill.

Subcommittee Democrats devoted more attention to the Bush administration's relatively few prosecutions of employers who hire illegal immigrants and the funding shortage for tools needed to capture, hold and deport illegal residents who commit serious crimes. When Rep. Grace F. Napolitano (D-Calif.) asked why there were not more deportations of illegal immigrants who reenter the country and commit felonies, Border Patrol officer Darryl Griffen replied, "There are very few formal deportations, because you have no place to put them" while they await hearings.

Even some Republicans accused Bush of pouring too little money and effort into tightening the borders. "The president of the United States has not been doing his job," Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-Calif.) said.