Monday, June 18, 2007

As an immigration overhaul bill is poised to return to the Senate this week, lawmakers from both parties showed little interest in compromise.

On CBS's "Face the Nation," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) called the situation a "mixed picture," saying the failure to eliminate the "Z visa," a provision that would allow illegal immigrants to get legal status, "amounts to amnesty."

Another Republican, Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), said on CNN's "Late Edition" that the inclusion of the Z visa makes the bill bound for failure. "The problem is this bill, I don't think, yet meets the standard of actually, Will it work?" Cornyn said.

He said he would support debate in which Republicans could offer as many amendments as they desire. "I think people are profoundly skeptical with . . . this big, complex bill that was negotiated behind closed doors."

But a prominent Democrat appeared unwilling to back away from his party's insistence that debate be limited. "Last Congress, we passed in the Senate, through amendment process and through debate, a comprehensive immigration reform bill. . . . We didn't insist upon indefinite amendments," said Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.).

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), an architect of the bill, made an impassioned plea for its passage on ABC's "This Week." "To my Republican colleagues, this is the best deal we're ever going to get," he said. "It's so easy to disagree with Ted Kennedy as a Republican because we disagree 90 percent of the time, but what we've done here is Republicans and Democrats sat down to solve a problem that no one party can solve by itself."

Most of the news on the Sunday shows came from appearances by Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, and Gen. David H. Petraeus [story, A11].

By Zachary A. Goldfarb