US:President George W Bush has acknowledged that he faces a formidable challenge in persuading Republicans to back an immigration reform plan which would allow most illegal immigrants, including thousands of Irish citizens, to remain in the US legally.
Speaking to reporters after his first visit to Capitol Hill in five years, Mr Bush described immigration as a "highly emotional issue" but insisted that reform was necessary to make the system work.
"It's going to take a lot of hard work, a lot of effort. We've got to convince the American people that this bill is the best way to enforce our border. I believe without the bill that it's going to be harder to enforce the border. The status quo is unacceptable," he said.
Yesterday's lunch with Republican legislators was the president's latest attempt to sell an immigration reform plan that has become his domestic policy priority but is deeply unpopular among many conservative voters. Immigration has exposed divisions in both parties, but the cleft is deeper among Republicans, who derailed a compromise bill in the Senate last week.
"Some members in there believe that we need to move a comprehensive bill, some don't. I understand that. This is a highly emotional issue, but those of us standing here believe now is the time to move a comprehensive bill that enforces our borders and has good workplace enforcement, that doesn't grant automatic citizenship, that addresses this problem in a comprehensive way," Mr Bush said.
A bipartisan group of senators who back the reform plan were working yesterday to break the procedural deadlock that halted the bill last week. Republicans and Democrats must agree on a list of amendments to be considered if the bill is to be revived.
Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, was cautious yesterday about the influence the president's intervention might have on the number of Republicans willing to back immigration reform.
"I think a lot of that will depend upon what it looks like in the end. And none of us know that yet. Look, we had a very, very good discussion, including some of our members who are not, shall I say, keen on this measure, and others who are still taking a look at it and trying to decide how they're going to vote. So it was a good give-and-take. We didn't expect anybody to stand up and holler that they had an epiphany," he said.
The limits of the president's clout in Congress were evident on Monday when seven Republicans joined Democrats to support the holding of a vote of no confidence in attorney general Alberto Gonzales. The motion failed to win enough support to proceed to a vote, but the fact that so many Republicans, many of them senators who face election next year, broke ranks is an ominous sign for the White House.
The administration received another setback on Monday when a federal appeals court ruled that legal US residents cannot be imprisoned indefinitely as "enemy combatants" without being charged. The three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the government should charge Ali al-Marri or release him from military custody.
"Put simply, the constitution does not allow the president to order the military to seize civilians residing within the United States and then detain them indefinitely without criminal process, and this is so even if he calls them 'enemy combatants'," the court said.
