President George W. Bush called on the Senate in early April 2006 to pass a broad immigration reform package, including a temporary guest worker program that has drawn resistance from many members of his own Republican Party.
Bush pressed lawmakers to move quickly toward a bill addressing border security, interior enforcement, and a guest worker component. He was explicit that any such provision would not constitute amnesty.
The Senate was weighing legislation that could offer undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship after an 11-year process. Estimates at the time put the number of people living in the US illegally at around 12 million.
The House had already passed a border-security measure late the previous year, but it excluded the temporary work visas Bush favored. Across the country, tens of thousands of demonstrators had taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest proposed reforms they viewed as targeting illegal immigrants too harshly.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in April 2006, in its own words.