Area GOP congressmen unswayed by protests

11:35 PM CDT on Tuesday, April 11, 2006

By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News

Forty-eight hours after the largest rally in Dallas history filled downtown streets, U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess was touring the Parkland delivery room, where nearly half the newborns are first-generation Americans.

LAWRENCE JENKINS/Special Contributor

U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, a Republican obstetrician from Flower Mound, speaks with Dr. Steven Bloom on Tuesday during a tour of Parkland Memorial Hospital. About half the babies born at Parkland are first-generation Americans.

It's far removed from the days of Dr. Burgess' obstetrics residency 25 years ago. And the hundreds of thousands of flag-waving marchers demanding immigrant rights, he said, don't soften his view one bit: Congress' top priority must be to tighten the border.

"We need to stop the hemorrhaging," the Flower Mound Republican said.

Dallas-area Republican representatives say demonstrations across the country only cemented their views – a stance immigration experts call risky as the emerging Hispanic electorate approaches critical mass.

"I would be working on my Spanish if I were a member of Congress," said James Hollifield, director of the Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University.

Protest organizers had hoped to pressure Congress to legalize most of the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants.

Dr. Burgess and his colleagues weren't swayed.

"We live in a wonderful country where people can express their feelings and express their passions. But we also live in a country where we don't make the laws on the streets," he said.

House members from Texas and most other states are relatively immune to immediate political shifts because most districts were tailored to favor one party. And analysts said that could explain why Dr. Burgess and other Dallas-area lawmakers – most of them conservative Republicans – feel free to stick with the hard-line position reflected in the border-security bill that the House passed in December.

That measure would make it a felony to illegally reside in the country. It also tightens border controls. The Senate adjourned last week without passing its own immigration measure.

One of the Dallas protest organizers, former state Rep. Domingo Garcia, said marchers weren't aiming at conservatives. "We're trying to go for the moderates," he said.

A "tortilla curtain" along the border would quickly crumble and fail, he said. "There will be a political reckoning in November, because the Latino community is energized."

Dr. Hollifield said the local Republican delegation is "caught between a rock and a hard place.

"If they respond to this and shift their position, you've got the right wing, maybe mildly xenophobic wing of the party, that's going to scream."

At an East Dallas Rotary luncheon Tuesday, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, defended the House approach. He ticked off the strains that illegal immigration puts on schools, hospitals and jails, and got good reviews from a couple of dozen conservative club members, whose questions centered on topics such as why children of illegal immigrants get automatic U.S. citizenship.

JIM MAHONEY/DMN

At the East Dallas Rotary on Tuesday, Rep. Pete Sessions said that without tight borders, 'we will find that we are overrun.'

"There are not a lot of other things on Americans' minds today" besides the immigration debate, Mr. Sessions said, warning that if Congress legalizes the current group of illegal residents without tightening borders first, the nation should brace for 25 million more.

"Without these parts being in place, we will find that we are overrun," he said.

Both Texas senators said Tuesday that the protests haven't changed their views, either.

"I don't think the marches are having an impact on our discussions in the Senate," said Sen. John Cornyn. "Immigration can be a highly emotional issue. So it's important that we make sure principle trumps emotion as we work to fix our broken immigration system."

The rallies also left Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Dallas, unmoved. He defended his stance over lunch at a Lakewood Italian restaurant with 60 members of the Dallas Northeast Chamber of Commerce.

While the size of the protest was a surprise, "it didn't change my mind," he said.

Like other Dallas-area Republicans, he voted for the final House bill but also for an amendment – blocked by Democrats – that would make illegal residency a misdemeanor rather than a felony.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist issued a joint statement Tuesday indicating that they support the softer version.

Mr. Hensarling insisted that border security is paramount.

"This debate is about whether or not America has the will and the means to control its borders, and whether or not there is a right way and a wrong way to come to America," he said.

Chamber members welcomed Mr. Hensarling's support for a guest-worker program, a key business goal.

"We agree with the call for border security," said Pete Havel, the chamber's regional director. "But [we] think what goes along with that needs to be a program that recognizes reality – we do not have all the workers to fill all the jobs that are needed in our economy."

Some analysts see potential for momentous shifts in the political landscape, arguing that conservatives are courting danger by ignoring the intense sentiment expressed at Dallas City Hall and across the nation.

"A generation of people are being politicized by this," said Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a leading conservative advocate for overhauling immigration, who has worked with the White House on President Bush's guest-worker proposal.

"Your individual House member is probably thinking about something else. But the president and [Republican Party chairman] Ken Mehlman and people thinking about the party at large are thinking about – are we going to lose this growing minority?"

Dallas-area House members say constituent feedback has overwhelmingly favored a crackdown, not compromise. Dr. Burgess recalled that Parkland handled about 10,000 births a year when he was a resident; relatively few were Hispanic.

These days it's closer to 16,000. CEO Ron Anderson – giving him a tour of the labor and burn units, and an earful about Medicare reimbursement rates – said 82 percent of the newborns are Hispanic, and roughly half are first-generation Americans.

Dr. Burgess said that if the majority of his constituents had their way, Congress would send armed National Guardsmen shoulder to shoulder to the Rio Grande.

"I've gotten two letters saying we should have a guest-worker program," he said. "I've gotten thousands saying, 'Close the border.' "

Staff writers Diane Jennings in Dallas and Michelle Mittelstadt in Washington contributed to this report.

E-mail tgillman@dallasnews.com