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Salazar not giving up on immigration

Lisa Ryckman, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 8, 2007 at midnight

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Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar issued a challenge today to the critics of the immigration reform bill he helped craft: if you don't like it, come up with something better.

Salazar said he hasn't given up on the controversial measure, even though it fell 15 votes short of the 60 votes needed to bring it up for final action.

"It's not over," Salazar said. "When the president gets back, hopefully, we'll be able to work with our Republican colleagues to get enough of them on board so we can get this bill moving forward."

The bipartisan bill combines border security and enforcement measures with a much-criticized plan to allow the 12 million undocumented workers in the country illegally to pay fines and apply for new visas that would allow them to stay. One of Salazar's colleagues in Colorado's congressional delegation, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, has been an outspoken opponent of the legislation.

"It's a shame that Senator Salazar, President Bush and others seem to be so tone-deaf on this," Tancredo said in a statment today. "The American people are dead-set against amnesty, and no amount of slick repackaging or creative euphemisms are going to change that."

Salazar said rounding up and deporting the nation's undocumented workers would cost billions — a price that makes it prohibitive.

"We need to have a realistic solution," Salazar said, adding that the bill's penalties, including fines and an eight-year waiting period, would be difficult requirements for many Americans to meet.

"For those who are bomb-throwers who say that this is not tough legislation with respect to the 12 million people who are here — it's tough legislation," he said.

Salazar said he believed amendments could be worked out that would satisfy most GOP objections but that some critics might never be satisfied.

"They are bomb-throwers who don't want to get to a solution to a very difficult problem," he said. "If they don't like our solution — let them come up with their solution."