Throckmorton equates Cannon's immigration proposals to the 1986 amnesty, which allowed those who entered the country illegally before 1982, to apply for legal status.

Cannon, who was first elected after 1986, has said he would have voted against that amnesty if he had been in Congress at the time. His office estimates that between 300,000 and 500,000 workers nationwide would qualify for his bill's benefits. Throckmorton counters that as many as 1 million workers and their families would qualify.

A handful of Utah immigration attorneys contacted by the Deseret Morning News said Cannon's proposal, and others currently before Congress, are far too narrow in scope to be considered amnesty bills.

Bountiful immigration attorney Leonor Perretta said Cannon's proposal is an earned benefit, not an amnesty, because "people have to demonstrate past work contributions to the U.S. economy and a substantial future work commitment."

Another immigration attorney, Lynn C. McMurray of Salt Lake City, said it would be more productive to focus on actual immigration issues, rather than the definition of amnesty.

"Society needs to evaluate the wide variety of people here without status and determine which, if any should be allowed to remain, with which type of benefits," he said.

John Keeley, spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington D.C., called Cannon's ag worker bill a "partial amnesty" because he's "using the guest worker category as the basis for changing the status of a few hundred thousand illegal aliens."

He added that media coverage of talk of amnesty in Washington gives more people outside the nation's borders the idea that there's a weakness in the nation's enforcement of existing immigration laws.

"When the U.S. starts brokering on amnesty you get more people coming in," he said.

Cannon's agricultural worker bill, HR 3142, can be found at thomas.loc.gov/.

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Contributing: Wendy Leonard

E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com