By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Now that President Bush's immigration reform plan seems dead for this year, a less ambitious proposal to offer about 500,000 undocumented farmworkers legal residency is taking on a life of its own.

The so-called AgJobs bill, which also would make it easier for growers to import foreign guest workers, has 55 co-sponsors — including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) — in the 100-member Senate, its authors said Wednesday.

Sens. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said they hoped in the next few weeks to increase that number to more than 60. That would give the bill enough support to overcome delaying tactics on the Senate floor and force a vote on its passage.

"We are on target and on course toward passage of this bill," said Craig, adding that its supporters were almost evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

"Congress can and should pass a significant immigration reform bill this year," he said.

The compromise legislation, introduced in September, resulted from years of negotiations among growers, farmworker unions, Latino advocacy groups and business organizations.

While it would streamline procedures for growers to recruit guest workers from abroad, the bill also would provide a route for those already here to obtain green cards for U.S. permanent residency. In addition, it would set minimum workplace standards.

In the House, however, the outlook is not rosy. The chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), is opposed to AgJobs; and several influential Republicans want to tighten controls on immigration.

At a hearing on guest-worker programs Wednesday, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on immigration, Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.), contended that such programs reduced wages for American workers and that legalization of undocumented migrants encouraged more to come illegally.

"We have an untried alternative — simply to enforce employer sanctions — that would year by year brighten the prospects for American workers," he said.

Although the AgJobs bill has 94 House co-sponsors, up from 59 a few months ago, that figure is still far short of the 218 needed for passage. Agribusiness groups and Latino organizations said Wednesday that they would mount a lobbying campaign for the bill.

Kennedy called on Bush to take a stand, but administration officials remained noncommittal about whether the president would support the bill.

A major difference between AgJobs and Bush's guest-worker plan is that the AgJobs bill would establish a path to legal status for illegal immigrants already working in agriculture.

"If we were able to gain the support of the president of the United States, this would go through the Senate of the United States in two hours," Kennedy said.

Craig said he was talking with White House officials about the bill and had personally discussed it with Bush.

He predicted that the president would sign the measure if Congress approved it.

"The reform that arrives at his desk is the reform that will get signed," Craig said. "I'm working very hard to get them on the bill."