Hastert doubts alien bill in 2006

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House leaders cast doubt yesterday on the possibility of passing immigration reform legislation this year and said, in an unusual move, that they will hold hearings across the country to gauge voter concern.

"I'm not putting any timeline ... but I think we need to get this thing done right," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, told reporters yesterday after meeting with the chairmen of all the committees that oversee immigration-related legislation.

Aides in both the House and Senate said yesterday the developments mean immigration legislation is essentially dead for the year. Pushing something through before the November elections would be too politically unpredictable, they said, and there would be no incentive to do it between the election and year's end.

Asked yesterday if it was realistic to think Congress could still pass immigration legislation before the elections, House Majority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio said: "Maybe."

Immigration legislation has been stalled for nearly a month because of deep opposition by House Republicans to the Senate's proposal, which provides a path to citizenship for most of the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the U.S. The House last year approved a bill to secure the border without dealing with the current illegal alien population or the "guest-worker" program wanted by President Bush.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, who voted for the Senate bill, said yesterday he "strongly supports" Mr. Hastert's decision to delay legislation for additional hearings.

While the issue of immigration divides Republicans, the position that Democrats are fairly unified behind -- granting citizenship rights to illegal aliens -- is highly unpopular among voters, polls show.

"We're ready to go on a comprehensive immigration reform bill, one that deals with security, one that deals with temporary guest-worker program, one, of course, that deals with a pathway to citizenship," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who accused House Republicans of stalling the legislation because they don't like the Senate bill.

House Republicans went to great efforts yesterday to suggest their differences are not with the Senate, but with Democrats.

Though 17 Republicans supported the Senate's "amnesty" bill, House Republicans are referring to it as the "Kennedy bill." Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, wrote much of the language in the bill that passed the Senate but the slightly modified compromise version that passed was sponsored by two Republicans, Sens. Mel Martinez of Florida and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.