[JURIST] President George W. Bush told the Legislative Conference of the Associated Builders and Contractors [organization website] Thursday that he supports an immigration bill amendment to provide $4.4 billion in immediate additional funding for border security [speech transcript], obtained through fines and penalties collected from illegal aliens. Bloomberg reports that several Senators reacted favorably to the proposed funding increase, hoping that it could jump-start the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 [S 1348 summary; JURIST report], which stalled in the Senate [JURIST report] last week. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) [official websites], who proposed the amendment, said that presidential support boosts prospects of the immigration bill passing [Graham press release].

Earlier this month, the Senate narrowly voted to sunset the Y-1 temporary guest worker visa program [JURIST report] after five years. Last month the Senate trimmed the proposed temporary guest worker program [JURIST report] from its previous maximum limit of 600,000 guest workers per year down to 200,000 after bipartisan criticism [JURIST report]. Bloomberg has more.