04/07/06 Immigration, Animal ID

Congress nears immigration deal and Animal Identification. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Senate Republicans and Democrats closed in on a last-minute compromise Thursday on legislation opening the way to legal status and eventual citizenship for many of the 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally. The deal would provide for enhanced border security, regulate the future flow of immigrants into the United States and offer legalized status to the millions of men, women and children in the country unlawfully. Yesterdays developments were a turn around from Wednesday when it appeared negotiations were at a stand still. The key sticking point involved the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, and the struggle to provide them an opportunity to gain legal status without exposing lawmakers to the political charge that they were advocating amnesty for lawbreakers. Washington Republican Congressman Doc Hastings understands the needs for safe borders. HASTINGS: I am a proponent and continue to be a proponent of the guest worker bill but I also recognize that all Americans see the need to have a secure border. I don't think those things are mutually different. I think you can have both. In fact I think when you have a guest worker bill; in many respects you insure that the borders are safer. So this is just part of the process and it moves in the right direction. Not everyone was satisfied. Beyond the illegal immigrants, there were other thorny issues to be clarified. Senate leaders had yet to publicly unveil draft legislation to make sure that only legal workers were hired in the future. Also on Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced the release of an implementation plan that outlines timelines and benchmarks for the establishment of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), along with a plan for the initial integration of private and state animal tracking databases with NAIS. USDA is also releasing the general technical standards for animal tracking databases that will enable integration of private systems with the NAIS. Private database owners are invited to submit applications for system evaluation to USDA and offer feedback as the final technical requirements are established. Now here's today's Washington Grange Report.