Key test - again

Another key battle in the fight for comprehensive immigration reform looms for today, notes this AP piece by Julie Hirschfeld Davis. Several amendments were defeated Wednesday, but their defeat has siphoned off support for the bill, and today will bring further challenges:
From the story:

Particularly worrisome to backers of the bill is an amendment by Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Max Baucus, D-Mont., to overhaul the employee verification system.


This story links to Rep. Tom Tancredo's publicity stunt with produce. From CNN:

It’s not every day a presidential hopeful sends Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff a head of lettuce, but that’s what Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, is doing Wednesday to show his disagreement with Chertoff’s recent comments on how failure of passing immigration reform might affect the agricultural industry.
Tancredo says he disagrees with recent comments Chertoff made that suggested if the immigration bill fails, the agricultural industry will suffer. To prove his point he is sending Chertoff a head of lettuce, a fruit basket, and a card saying, “much, much more where this comes from.”
“The administration has taken hyperbole to a whole new level this time,” Tancredo said in a statement. “They are now trying to convince the public that without amnesty, the American people are going to starve?”
“The agriculture industry and the free market has managed to keep producing through floods, droughts, and $3.00 per gallon gas,” Tancredo added, “I doubt very seriously that a nominal increase in labor costs is going to be the end of lettuce as we know it.”


TK: Unbelievable. Tancredo has taken irresponsible public service to a whole new level. Critics like Tancredo and Lou Dobbs are against both outsourcing of American jobs AND a guest worker program/immigration reform for agriculture. Can't they see that American farmers must outsource their production if they can't find workers?

C-SPAN's immigration links and video page is found here. If the comprehensive immigration bill does fail, there will be an effort to raise the AgJobs legislation as a stand alone bill. Reactionary critics like Tancredo and the inability of Congress to come to closure on any and all aspects of this debate are problems that don't appear to be going away.