WASHINGTON - The House Judiciary Committee is to hold a field hearing on immigration reform in El Paso on August 17, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, its chairman, announced Wednesday.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, the Democrats’ point man in Congress on border security, said he had mixed feelings about the decision to hold the hearing. On Tuesday, Reyes testified before a House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims.

“While I will welcome these committee members to El Paso and hope they will learn more about the intricacies of the border region while they are here, I feel the time for hearings is over,” Reyes said.

“We need to conference the House and Senate bills and provide the nation with comprehensive, fair immigration reform and border security.”

On Thursday, Reyes will, at the request of the House Democratic Homeland Security Committee leadership, testify before a joint hearing of the Homeland Security Committee and the Government Reform Committee.

Reyes said that while in the Border Patrol – he served for 26 ½ years – he backed “limited strategic fencing” along the border, particularly in urban areas.

However, he said proposals in both the House and Senate border security/immigration bills to construct hundreds of miles of border fence are impractical.

“Instead, our limited federal funding could be better spent on other desperately needed border security personnel, equipment, and technology,” Reyes said.

“Rather than considering proposals that will do little to solve the immigration and security problems facing this country, Congress should be working towards a fair, comprehensive border security and immigration bill.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, spoke about another potential part of a comprehensive immigration reform bill - the proposal for a guest worker program - as a member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee at a hearing Wednesday.

Hinojosa said he wanted the panel to know of the “deep frustration in my community in Texas about the Majority's refusal to work in a good faith effort to fix our broken immigration system.”

Hinojosa said the House should be addressing the nation’s workforce needs in a way that benefits employees and employers equally.

“We are tired of ‘road shows,’ like those in San Diego and Laredo, designed to fan the flames of anti-immigrant sentiment for potential gain at the ballot box,” Hinojosa said. “We want comprehensive immigration reform.”

Hinojosa said if the House Republican leadership was serious about border security and immigration policy, they would not be holding “show hearings.” Instead, he said, they would be hard at work negotiating an immigration bill with the Senate.

The Senate plan would allow undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for five years or more to apply for citizenship by paying fines and back taxes, and immigrants who have been in the country for two to five years to apply for citizenship at border checkpoints. The House plan has no such policy.

The Senate plan also proposes a new H-2C visa for temporary guest workers, allowing employers to recruit non-citizen workers into the United States without violating immigration policy. The House plan has no such policy.

The House plan would establish up to 700 miles of triple-layer fence at strategic points along the 1,952-mile U.S.-Mexican border. The Senate plan calls for 370 miles of fencing. Both plans call for increased border patrol staff.

Hinojosa said it requires a good faith effort to produce the right policy to serve the nation. “That is unfortunately, in short supply,” he said.

"The Republican record speaks for itself. The majority has consistently blocked efforts to increase financial resources to hire thousands of border patrol agents needed for border security.”

Hinojosa said the Republican record on protecting our workers was even worse.

“The federal minimum wage has not been increased in nearly a decade. Enforcement of our labor laws has fallen dramatically during this administration's tenure. This record of inaction and neglect cannot be papered over by a few hearings,” he said.