Source: Senators finalizing plan to stiffen border security

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bipartisan immigration legislation being written in the Senate would require surveillance of 100 percent of the U.S. border with Mexico and apprehension of 90 percent of people trying to cross the border in certain high-risk areas, a person familiar with the proposals said Wednesday.

People living here illegally could begin to get green cards in 10 years, but only if a new southern border security plan is in place, employers have adopted mandatory electronic verification of their workers' legal status and a new electronic exit system is operating at airports and seaports.

The person provided the information on condition of anonymity because the deliberations were private.

The contours of the tough new border security plans emerged as senators moved closer to unveiling sweeping legislation within days that would put some 11 million immigrants living here illegally on a path to citizenship and allow tens of thousands of high- and low-skilled workers into the country on new visa programs, in addition to securing the border.

Lawmakers and aides said all the major elements were complete, or close to. A final deal was near on a new visa for agriculture workers. There were small details to be dealt with on visas for high-tech workers, but Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said it wasn't enough to hold up the bill.

"We are closer now than we have been in 25 years for serious immigration reform," Durbin told reporters Wednesday after he and other Democrats in the Senate negotiating group briefed members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. "This president is behind it, and there is a strong, growing bipartisan effort in the Senate to support it. We hope that the House will do the same."

Meanwhile tens of thousands of pro-immigration activists massed outside the Capitol and in cities around the country to push Congress to act. They waved American flags and carried signs reading, "Reform immigration for America now!"

The border security piece of the legislation is critical to getting support from Republicans, but some Democrats have opposed making a path to citizenship contingent on border security. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that the new requirements wouldn't impede citizenship.

"A lot of people here would not want to put dollars into the border, but as a price to get citizenship, as long as it's not an impediment to citizenship but rather works alongside citizenship, it's something we can all live with," Schumer said, after talking to the Hispanic House members. "What we've said all along is triggers have to be objective and attainable in a way it doesn't interfere or delay with people becoming citizens, and that's in the bill."

According to the person familiar with the proposals, the new border security requirements call for 100 percent surveillance and a 90 percent apprehension rate of border crossers or would-be crossers in sectors where the majority of unauthorized entries take place.

The goals would be achieved by giving the Department of Homeland Security six months from the bill's enactment to create the new border security plan deploying the personnel, infrastructure and technology needed to achieve the 90 percent effectiveness rate. Also within six months, the department would have to create a plan to identify where new fencing is needed on the border. Once those plans are certified, people living here illegally could begin to apply for a provisional status allowing them to work here legally.

If the 90 percent rate of apprehensions isn't achieved in high-risk border sectors within five years, a commission made of border state officials would make recommendations on how to achieve it.

After 10 years, people granted "registered provisional immigrant status" could apply for green cards granting them permanent residency — and the ability to seek citizenship — if the new security and fencing plans have been completed, the mandatory employment verification system is in place and used by all employers, and the new electronic exit system is operating at airports and seaports, collecting machine-readable visa or passport information from airplanes and ships.

The electronic exit system is meant to keep better track of people in the country on temporary visas. Some 40 percent of people in the country illegally arrived with visas but stayed after they expired. The employment verification piece would be an expansion of an existing system called E-Verify that's currently voluntary for most employers, though it's mandatory in some states.

The bill would allocate $5.5 billion for the various proposals, including $1.5 billion for fencing, $2 billion for other border measures and $2 billion to help the commission of border state officials do its work, should that become necessary, the person said, stressing more or less money could be allocated if needed.

The border security details were first reported Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal.

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Immigration bill expected this week, senators say

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bill to overhaul the immigration system would likely be completed by the end of this week, two senior senators said on Sunday.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York said that senators in the bipartisan "Group of Eight" have resolved all major issues in a pending deal and that their staffs are putting the bill into legislative language.

"All of us have said that they'll be no deal until the eight of us agree to a big, specific bill, but hopefully we can get that done by the end of the week," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation" program.

"There have been kerfuffles along the way, but each one of those thus far has been settled," said Schumer, a member of the group, which has four Democrats and four Republicans.

All eight members must then review the legislative language, he said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest U.S. business group, and the AFL-CIO, the largest labor federation, reached an elusive agreement on a guest-worker program late last month, clearing the way for the writing of a full bill.

The legislation will include an earned pathway to U.S. citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, bolstered border security and ways for business to meet the need for both high-skilled and low-skilled workers.

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, appearing with Schumer, agreed that a bill would be ready soon and said the legislation would address the needs of both business and labor with a guest-worker program.

"We need to have a path to citizenship, and we need to have secure borders .... And we also have to have a robust guest-worker program so people will not hire someone who is here illegally," McCain said.

A bipartisan group from the Republican-led House of Representatives is working on its own version of immigration reform.

If the Senate and House bills pass their respective chambers, they would have to be reconciled before a final version is voted on and then sent to President Barack Obama for signing into law.

The Gang of Eight in the Democratic-led Senate had initially planned to have a bill by the end of March.

(Writing by Philip Barbara; Editing by Eric Beech)

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'Gang of 8' senators see Border Patrol in action

Four of the U.S. senators leading the charge on immigration reform got more than they expected today when they came to Nogales, Ariz., to check on border security.

Just a few steps away from where they stood with Customs and Border Patrol officials, the problem facing the nation unfolded before their eyes: A young woman was sprinting her way out of Mexico, then climbing a security fence, only to be caught by the border patrol within seconds.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., soon tweeted about the event, saying: "Just witnessed a woman successfully climb an 18-ft bollard fence a few yards from us in Nogales. And Border Patrol successfully apprehended her, but incident is another reminder that threats to our border security are real."

Arizona's Senate delegation, McCain and Sen. Jeff Flake, both Republicans, hosted Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., for a tour along the border in Nogales, part of the Tucson sector. All four senators are members of the so-called "Gang of Eight" that is working on a solution to the nation's immigration issues.

ABC News was at the scene of the apprehension exclusively and later asked the senators from out of state what they thought of the experience.

"Well, I'd have to know all the details there to give you a judgment," Schumer said. "One of the things we learned is that a lot of people cross the border are doing it for drug purposes, too. But I don't know what happened in this situation."

The incident was "surprising" to Bennet.

"I just have never seen it before," he said.

For McCain, the incident was all-too-normal.

"One of the sad things about all of this is that most of those people who jump over the fence are doing that because they want a better life," he said at the news conference following the tour. "And I understand that. So we separate the drug cartels from individuals or somebody trying to cross over so they improve their lives."

The Border Patrol has more agents than ever, nearly 22,000, with 651 miles of fence along the 1,969-mile-long border.

Technology assists the boots on the ground, with 125 airplanes and six drones patrolling the Mexican frontier all working together to make crossing the border illegally more difficult than ever.

In fact, apprehensions like the ones the senators saw today are down 78 percent from their peak in 2000.

President Obama, in interviews with ABC News' partner, Univision, said today he thinks the border is secure enough to begin the reforms that would bring the 11 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows.

"It's never going to be 110-percent perfect, but what we can do is to continue to improve it and, at the same time, provide a clear pathway for those who are already here and who've invested their lives here," the president said.

RELATED: President Obama Expects Immigration Bill in April

Counter to stereotype, six of the nation's 10 safest cities are on or near the border. El Paso, Texas, which sits just a few miles from Juarez, Mexico, has the lowest crime rate in the nation three years running.

El Paso Mayor John Cook said it's time to start immigration reform now "because [the] border is secure."

RELATED: 'Gang of Eight' to Tour Arizona-Mexico Border

"For the most part, people who come into the United States don't want to get in trouble. They don't want to commit crimes," he said. "They just want to make a living. I call them economic refugees [because] they just came to try to secure the American dream and a better life for their families, not to commit crimes."

Back in Arizona, McCain was in his home state to convince skeptics from his base that border security is improving. He gave this qualified endorsement.

"With the proper use of technology, with the proper coordination between different agencies, [I believe] that we will be able to say that we have a degree of border security that would allow people to move forward to a path of citizenship," McCain said.

The senators said they hope to have an agreement on an immigration reform bill soon.

"We hope to have a bill agreed to and done the day we come back," Schumer said.

Both McCain and Schumer recognized that compromise was key.

"With this legislation, no one will be totally happy because we are having to make compromises, and that's what makes for good legislation, is compromise that brings everybody together," McCain said.

They added that the reforms cannot be passed piecemeal and will need to be passed as a complete unit.

The four senators who did not make the tour hope to make one in the near future. They already had plans for the recess when it was organized.

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Senators push Obama for military options in Syria

Black smoke rises from a building due to Syrian government forces shelling in Aleppo, Syria. (Aleppo Media Center, …Democratic Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and the panel’s top Republican, Sen. John McCain, pressed President Barack Obama on Thursday to consider “limited military options” to help rebels topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“We believe there are credible options at your disposal, including limited military options, that would require neither putting U.S. troops on the ground nor acting unilaterally,” McCain and Levin urged Obama in a letter.

The goal, they said, would be to work with key allies in the Middle East and Europe “to stop the killing in Syria and force Bashar al-Assad to give up power.” The means? Target Syria’s air force and support Turkey if it is prepared to set up a “safe zone inside of Syria’s northern border," they wrote—notably by deploying Patriot missile batteries to deter Assad’s air power and to protect against Scud missile attacks.

The two lawmakers urged “precision airstrikes” against Syrian aircraft, noting that the top military commander in the Middle East, Gen. James Mattis, testified last week that they could take out “a fair amount” of their targets.

“Such a mission could also include Assad’s SCUD missile batteries and would not require American or allied pilots to fly into the reach of Syria’s air defenses,” Levin and McCain said. “We urge you to work with our friends and allies, as well as regional organizations, to consider this limited option.”

And the two lawmakers pushed Obama “to provide more robust assistance directly to vetted opposition groups” in Syria—that is to say, rebels deemed by the U.S. and its allies not to be extremists.

“We believe such assistance should include tactical intelligence and increased deliveries of food and medicine, fuel, communications equipment, medical care for the wounded, and other humanitarian assistance,” the senators argued. “To this end, establishing a safe haven inside Syria would also serve the important goal of delivering humanitarian assistance more effectively.”

Levin and McCain stopped short of urging the administration to provide weapons directly to the rebels, something Obama has repeatedly rejected over the course of the bloody fighting for the past three years. Independent estimates have placed the death toll at about 70,000.

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