IMMIGRATION REFORM 'TOP PRIORITY'.

Byline: Lisa Friedman Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Southern California Republicans vowed Wednesday to bar illegal immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses, restrict asylum laws and speed up completion of a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, all by early next year.

Unbowed by the absence of those measures in a sweeping overhaul of U.S. spy agencies that Congress ordered Wednesday, local lawmakers promised that cracking down on illegal immigration would be their top priority in 2005.

``It's really far from being the end of the national security debate,'' Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, said of the intelligence reform bill President Bush is expected to sign this week.

``When you consider what happened on 9-11 and when you consider what happened at the World Trade Center 10 years before, these perpetrators were part of a failed immigration system.''

Gallegly, Rep. David Dreier, R-Glendora, and Rep. Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar, said they will be backing an effort by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., to link immigration reforms to the first major bill Congress passes next year.

``We want to get them into law as soon as possible and make America safer against another terrorist attack,'' Sensenbrenner said.

Still, GOP members were mindful of the Senate opposition that unraveled their plans this week.

``Sure, we can pass a bill, but what guarantee do we have that the Senate is going to be with us?'' Gallegly said.

Democrats, along with advocates for illegal immigrants and even some conservatives, maintained the restrictions would do little to improve national security.

``I hope that the Republican leadership will not tarnish this achievement today with commitments to vote on ill-advised changes to our immigration laws in the next Congress,'' said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.

Dan Griswold, director of trade policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., called driver's license bans and tight asylum laws ``closing a door that terrorists don't seem that interested in coming through anyway.''

Griswold said the real threat comes from those who enter the country temporarily on student and tourist visas.

Under Sensenbrenner's bill, states could conceivably issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, but only licenses that met national standards would be accepted as identification for boarding airplanes, entering federal buildings or conducting business with the federal government.

Dreier, who took heat during his re-election campaign from some conservatives who thought he wasn't tough enough on illegal immigration, said he shares the concerns ``right down the line.''

Completing a three-mile stretch of fencing along the California border with Mexico, which has been held up for environmental concerns, will be a ``top priority,'' he said.

Lisa Friedman, [phone]

lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com