Corker finds unlikely ally on immigration
North Dakotan helps break logjam
WASHINGTON — One is a former farm state governor. The other is a selfmade millionaire whose Southern drawl belies an impatience with the slowmoving Congress.
These two senators, an odd couple of sorts, have emerged as unlikely players in the immigration overhaul.
Sens. Bob Corker, RTenn., and John Hoeven, R-N. D., quietly orchestrated the “border surge,” a bipartisan compromise that may bring enough Republican support this week to pass a sweeping immigration overhaul — and its path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants in this country without legal status.
Neither man quite expected for this to be their crowning legislative achievement.
The North Dakotan and the Tennessean are not regular visitors to the Southern border with Mexico. Hoeven’s wife has Mexican ancestry, but the two senators represent states that are not among those with historically large immigrant populations.
Both former chief executives and relative newcomers to the Senate, they are among a crop of legislators who tire of the partisan gamesmanship of Washington and the dismally low public opinion of Congress. They say they ran for office to fix problems, and don’t view compromise as a dirty word.
Their $ 46-billion border security alternative, poised for adoption by the Senate, elevates the previously lesser known duo to a newfound prominence.
“Americans want immigration reform, of that there is no doubt,” Hoeven said Friday as the two men introduced their legisla- tion on the Senate floor. “But, they want us to get it right.”
Corker said he was more proud of the work he had done last week than anything else since coming to the Senate six years ago.
“This will affect people. This one is real,” Corker said, choking up as he spoke afterward. “People’s lives will be changed if we pass this.”
Hoeven and Corker had rarely worked together — Corker, a former construction company owner and Chattanooga mayor, spent his time on the banking and foreign relations committees; Hoeven, a governor for 10 years in an oilrich state before coming to the Senate in 2011, focused on agriculture and energy resources.
A couple of weeks ago, they started talking — with each other, and with other Republican senators and those in the bipartisan Gang of Eight senators that crafted the overhaul.
Republicans needed a guarantee that borders would be secure before immigrants could gain legal status. Democrats worried that day would never arrive, leaving immigrants forever in limbo.
Talks went on, but a compromise seemed out of reach. But when the budget office reported that the overall bill would net $197 billion from the new fees and taxes that immigrants and their employers would pay, the senators had an opening to beef up the border in ways that had been unimaginable.
The “border surge” was born: Triple the number of drones, twice as many boots on the ground and completion of a 700-mile fence. In exchange, immigrants would be able to transition, after 10 years, to permanent legal status as planned. In 13 years, they could gain citizenship.