House moves to cut illegal migration

WASHINGTON — The House acted Friday to stem the tide of illegal immigration, voting 239-182 to tighten border controls and stop unlawful immigrants from getting jobs. But lawmakers left for next year the tougher issue of what to do with the 11 million undocumented people already in the country.

The House legislation, billed as a border protection, anti-terrorism and illegal immigration control act, includes such measures as enlisting military and local law enforcement help in stopping illegal entrants and requiring employers to verify the legal status of their workers. It put off consideration of a guest worker program, which President Bush and many in Congress say must be part of a lasting solution to the illegal immigrant crisis.

The legislation, among other provisions:

• Requires employers to use within six years a database to verify Social Security numbers of employees or face civil or criminal penalties for hiring illegal workers.

• Requires mandatory detention for all non-Mexican illegal immigrants arrested at ports of entry or at land and sea borders by Oct. 1, 2006.

• Establishes mandatory sentences for smuggling illegal immigrants and for re-entering the country illegally after deportation.

• Makes illegal presence in the country a crime.

• Makes a drunken driving conviction a deportable offense.

• Requires building five two-layer fences in parts of California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona on the U.S.-Mexican border, placing a priority on a fence at Laredo, Texas.

• Requires the departments of Defense and Homeland Security to develop a joint plan on increased use of military surveillance equipment on the border.

• Requires Border Patrol uniforms to be made in the United States, not Mexico.

• Prohibits the attorney general from providing grant money to any federal, state or local government agency or entity that fails to provide the Department of Homeland Security with information on a person's citizenship or immigration status.

• Eliminates the visa lottery program.

• Makes wording of oath of citizenship recited in naturalization ceremonies law to prevent changes without congressional action.