President Bush's effort to secure lawful employment opportunities for illegal immigrants is evolving into an early battle of the 2008 presidential campaign, as his would-be White House successors jockey for position ahead of next week's immigration showdown in the Senate.
Bush called on Congress yesterday to tone down the increasingly sharp and divisive rhetoric over immigration, as he renewed his push for a guest-worker plan that would allow millions of illegal immigrants to continue working in the United States.
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Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), whom Bush helped elect as party leader, is threatening to bring a new immigration bill to the Senate floor early next week.
John McCain (Ariz.), a rival of Frist's for the Republican nomination, is promoting Bush's call for tougher border security and the guest-worker program as he embraces the president to shore up his standing with Republican leaders.
Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) had vowed to write a bipartisan proposal that would bridge conservative demands for much tougher border enforcement with calls from both parties for a guest-worker program to meet the demand for unskilled labor and to address the 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.
The visas would last for up to six years under the leading Senate proposals, but senators are divided over whether workers would have to return to their home countries for a year before qualifying for a renewal.
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