The Utah Republican said reform-minded members of Congress are “working like crazy” with the White House to put together a broad immigration reform package to be introduced early this year.

Bush has also put immigration reform near the top of his agenda.

“I believe that if a person, an employer, can't find somebody willing to do a job in America, they ought to be able to legally hire somebody who is not a citizen of our country, and that that person ought to be treated with respect,” the president said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Bush said that if people can come to the United States to work legally, they are less likely to sneak across the border, allowing border control efforts to focus on stopping smugglers or potential terrorists.

But Republicans such as Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, head of the 71-member House Immigration Reform Caucus, have been vocal in their opposition to reform and vowed to wage a vigorous battle.

“The president says his job is to solve big problems. However, his open borders, pro-amnesty proposals solve none. Indeed, it even makes our task of protecting the borders more difficult,” Tancredo said in a statement. “The problem of people violating our immigration laws will never be solved by rewarding them for that behavior.”

Cannon says that "the people who are anti-immigration are few" and take a "simplistic" view of the issue.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes guest worker proposals, said Bush has his hands full with Iraq, Social Security privatization, tax code reform and immigration.

“By the time he gets around to pushing immigration issues, his political clout will be Swiss cheese,” said Stein. “The last thing he ought to be thinking is that he's going to be making a big push to get something like this through.”

Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, said she is encouraged that the president has made immigration a top issue, and there are positive signs in the Senate.

“In the House, it's a much heavier lift because there are vocal - but I don't know how potent - restrictionist voices,” she said. She hopes the Senate creates enough momentum to convince the House to act on comprehensive reform.

For now, Cannon says the House is more focused on dealing with “law-and-order” solutions to the immigration problem, where there is broad consensus.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., is expected to attach tough immigration provisions to the first big bill through Congress. His proposals would make it harder for a foreigner to claim political asylum in the United States, impose strict national standards for driver licenses and strengthen border enforcement.

Cannon wants it taken further.

Cannon wants to see states given access to the U.S. VISIT database, which checks fingerprints of those crossing the border. And he wants federal immigration agencies to pay to lock up undocumented immigrants guilty of crimes, possibly in a new privatized facility, or to repatriate them to Mexico so local law enforcement isn't stuck with the burden.

"I'm pro-immigration and I'm also pro-law enforcement," he says.

Still, Cannon said the punishment for undocumented immigrants should fit the crime. He compared it to traffic violations, where offenders could pay a penalty and remain in the country unless they are guilty of a serious offense.

He said that threatening to uproot lives and deport families will only drive undocumented immigrants underground where they could be exploited or resort to crime. “We need a penalty that is appropriate,” he said.

It is those kinds of views that drew the ire of hard-line immigration groups that bombarded Cannon with attacks during his Republican primary last year.

Cannon says the campaign didn't soften his support for immigration reform and he continues to work with colleagues and the White House on a comprehensive reform proposal that would build on a bill introduced in the last Congress by Sen. John McCain and Rep. Jim Kolbe, both Arizona Republicans.

Their bill would let undocumented immigrants in the United States apply for a special visa allowing them to remain in the country and work for three years. After that, they can seek permanent residency and go into the same system as those seeking citizenship through the normal legal system.

“One of the things that will be part of it is, whoever is here is not going to get to the front of the line,” said Cannon. “The people who have broken the law are not going to have an advantage and go to the front of the line over those who obey the law.”

Kelley said members of Congress might feel good about voting for Sensenbrenner's get-tough provisions, but at the end of the day they are “a box of Band-Aids without any adhesive. It's supposed to cover this stuff and protect us, but it's just going to fall right off.”

Ultimately, she says, it will be legislation like McCain's seeking to address the whole immigration problem that will stick.