Should They Stay Or Should They Go?

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Where the President stands on the issue is likely to be a deciding factor. Immigration policy was one of the ways in which George W. Bush defined himself in his 2000 campaign as a different kind of Republican, a Texas Governor who believed that "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande." Once he got to the White House, he infuriated some social conservatives by proposing--and appearing to be serious about--an immigration plan that included a guest-worker program. It was an idea he shelved after 9/11, then put forward again as the first policy initiative of his 2004 re-election campaign. But in a private White House meeting with congressional leaders last year, Bush confessed that he had misjudged the politics of the issue and agreed to recalibrate, putting more emphasis on border security. The President has insisted, though, that he wants reform that includes both enhanced border enforcement and provisions for guest workers. His ideas, which focus on giving migrant laborers temporary visas, have never gone as far as the McCain-Kennedy proposal of offering citizenship to illegal immigrants and some future guest workers. Last week, as Bush met in Mexico with President Vicente Fox, he said, "We want them coming in in an orderly way." He added, "And if they want to become a citizen, they can get in line, but not the head of the line."

In Bush's closed meeting with Fox, a senior Administration official says, the U.S. President told the Mexican one that there is an "unsettling" undercurrent of isolationist and protectionist attitudes in the U.S. "It's an emotional issue," Bush told Fox but predicted, "I think we will get something" out of Congress on immigration. The two talked nuts and bolts of legislative strategy, with Bush saying the plan is to get a comprehensive immigration bill from the Senate, then add some of those elements to the House's security bill when the two versions reach a conference committee. A White House official told TIME that once the bill reaches a conference committee, Bush will weigh in more heavily on the specifics that he wants in the final law.

Bush is keen to preserve for Republicans the gains that he is credited with having made among culturally conservative but traditionally Democratic Hispanics, who gave him 40% of their vote in 2004 and are believed to have been crucial to his re-election. Hispanics account for about half the population increase in the U.S. Florida Senator Mel Martinez, a Republican, warned his party last week that it risks losing ground with "individuals who share our values on so many different issues." Former Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie, a close adviser to the White House, said, "The Republican majority already rests too heavily on white voters, and current demographic voting percentages will not allow us to hold our majority in the future."

There is also a far more immediate reason for congressional Republicans to find some way to bridge their divide on immigration: they are short on tangible accomplishments in this midterm-election year. A law that would address the immigration mess would give them something to brag about as voters get ready to go to the polls. "We need to have a [presidential] signing ceremony on the border before the fall," says one of the G.O.P.'s top strategists. "We need to get it done."