Senate Democrats Debating Strategy For H-1B Measure

A strategy session on H-1B visa increase legislation was one item on the menu at today's Senate Democratic policy luncheon, and sources said Democratic leaders are likely to provide clues overthe next day or two about how they plan to assuage two important constituencies maneuvering on the bill. At issue is whether Democrats and the White House — the latter of which is said to be deeply involved in the discussions — will insist that some unrelated immigration proposals dealing with late amnesty for illegal aliens and immigration by Central Americans and Haitians be brought to a vote in exchange for Democratic cooperation on the underlying H-1B bill. The letter, designed to increase the number of visas for foreign professionals, is strongly backed by the high technology community. While advocates for the so-called Latino fairness issues insisted today that Democratic leaders as of late Monday were pledging to force a vote on those issues in exchange for a freestanding H-1B bill, sources backing a clean H-1B bill said evidence points to the contrary. At presstime, Senate Minority Leader Daschle's office could not be reached for comment.

Regardless of their strategy, Senate Democrats are expected to be unanimous in their support of the cloture motion on the H-1B bill this afternoon, a vote to be taken following today's vote on extending permanent normal trade relations to China. Although some sources have suggested Democrats would back down from the Latino issues, in exchange for Republicans agreeing to drop a bill to reform the H-2A agricultural guest worker program, Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza Monday said Latino groups would vigorously oppose that as an unfair trade that would pit one element of the immigrant community against the other. Senate Banking Chairman Gramm, who has objected to previous unanimous consent agreements exchanging a vote on Latino issues for a clean H-1B bill, today said he will continue to object to any attempts to couple H-1B with other immigration matters. "The Democrats say they're for the H-1B bill that [Senate Judiciary Chairman] Hatch, [Sen. Spencer] Abraham, [R-Mich.], and I put together — but they are only willing to let it pass if we pay tribute by giving amnesty to ? people who came here illegally. Either you're for H-1B or you're not," he added. "Democrats are not going to be able to have it both ways — they're not going to be able to go to Silicon Valley and say `We're with you, only if you pay us off.'" Gramm emphasized his objections extend to all unrelated immigration matters and said the Senate "ought not" to bring the Republican backed H-2A bill into the debate over H-1B visas.

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