Farm Workers Dropped From Talks WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Clinton administration has retracted a demand to grant amnesty to about one million longtime illegal immigrants.
Meanwhile, a two-pronged plan to allow just as many illegal farm workers to stay in the country and expand a visa program for agriculture workers looks dead.
President Clinton had demanded amnesty for illegal immigrants who arrived before 1986. He also wanted to restore a program allowing illegals with work permits to pay fines rather than return to their home countries to obtain green cards.
But Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said the blanket amnesty would never be approved. Also dropped from negotiations with White House officials was a proposal to offer green cards to refugees from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Haiti under easier terms that Cubans and Nicaraguans now enjoy, according to officials on both sides.
Democrats demanded this provision to help victims of civil wars, but Republicans said the proposal unfairly picks which immigrants get benefits.
Central Americans are ``definitely not on the table,'' said Maria Echaveste, Clinton's deputy chief of staff. ``The White House made it clear we want it and Republicans made it clear that they won't have it, no way no how.''
However, Republicans are offering to revive the fine program for four months. Under the program called 245i, illegal immigrants with work permits who are applying for green cards could pay a $1,000 fine rather than return home, where they would have to wait three to 10 years before they could return to the United States.
Another GOP proposal would offer appeal hearings for immigrants who arrived before 1982 but were denied inclusion in an earlier amnesty program. A related measure would help allow the spouses and minor children of these immigrants remain in the United States.
The total GOP offer disappointed Democrats who fought for the broader provisions.
``Under this agreement, too many people who contribute every day to the well-being of this country were denied the relief they need and deserve,'' said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who heads immigration for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
He said if the latest GOP offer stands, it would signal that Congress and Clinton ``declined to address several profound inequities in our nation's current immigration policy.''
Meanwhile, in a major blow to the agriculture lobby, Lott said farm workers won't be included in the package of immigration proposals that have emerged from negotiations with the White House.
Anthony Bedell, a lobbyist for the American Nursery and Landscaping Association, vowed to continue fighting for the measure, but acknowledged ``some political leaders are reading the compromise its last rites.''
That compromise would have allowed as many as one million illegal farm employees to stay in the country permanently and temporarily add perhaps another million foreigners through an expanded visa program.
But the measure, which lawmakers negotiated separately from the other immigration measures, was dropped after Democrats demanded that any action for farm workers include relief for Central American refugees, Echaveste said.
White House and congressional officials hope to finish work on the immigration efforts Wednesday or Thursday. Many House members were traveling Tuesday to California for the funeral of the late Rep. Julian Dixon.
^___=
On the Net: Congress is at http://thomas.loc.gov