Less than a week after his reelection in a campaign where immigration did not become an issue, President George W. Bush moved aggressively to resurrect his politically discredited plan to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, surprising and angering many of the conservatives who voted for him.

"We are formulating plans for the legislative agenda for next year," said presidential political adviser Karl Rove. "And immigration will be on that agenda. The president had a meeting this morning to discuss with a significant member of the Senate the prospect of immigration reform. And he's going to make it an important item."

That meeting was with Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, one of the senate's most outspoken supporters of amnesty for illegals who has proposed his own wide-reaching plan to offer legalization benefits and even citizenship to the estimated 8 million to 12 million illegals in the country. McCain was a vocal opponent of Arizona's Proposition 200 aimed at illegal aliens, which passed by a wide margin. The measure requires applicants for voting and welfare benefits to present identification proving eligibility.

At the same time, President Bush dispatched Secretary of State Colin Powell to Mexico to reassure impatient government officials there that legalizing millions of their countrymen in the U.S. will go forward.

The president's amnesty plan, first announced in 2003, had been derailed after meeting stiff opposition in the House of Representatives. That triggered consternation and harsh words from Mexico whose influence over US government policy stands to increase dramatically after any legalization takes effect. That's because amnesty will provide Mexico with a sizable population bloc inside the US which still has strong cultural loyalties to the home country.

There are an estimated 10 million to 20 million Mexicans living in the US legally and illegally...

Mexican officials, including President Vicente Fox, have sent barbed messages to the US, demanding that illegals here be granted driver's licenses and that state and local governments recognize the "matricula consular" cards issued to illegals by Mexican consulates. Widespread acceptance of the matricula consular cards would be tantamount to a general amnesty, because there would no longer be an incentive for aliens to apply for the U.S.-issued green cards provided only to legal aliens.

"This situation has become a priority," said Mexican President Fox. "I firmly hope we will be able to reach a migration accord. And I hope to achieve this by the end of next year because this is what I am expecting from President Bush."

In Mexico City, Powell told the U.S.-Mexico Binational Commission that "the president remains committed to comprehensive immigration reform as a high priority in his second term."

Because of popular opposition to the amnesty plan, it was kept on the back burner during the campaign. Powell admitted that Bush waited until after the election to move the proposal forward.

"In light of the campaign and other things that were going on, we weren't able to engage the Congress on it," Powell told the New York Times. "But now that the election is behind us and the president is looking to his second term, the president intends to engage Congress on it."

According to Reuters News Service, Fox said Bush asked him not to raise the issue during Bush's campaign for a second term. "Bush asked that the issue be put to one side while he campaigned for the Nov. 2 US election, Fox said," the news service reported.

"I hope that the only thing we needed was to get past the election, and that we can now get on with reaching concrete resolutions," said Fox.

Under the president's plan, unlimited numbers of foreigners from anywhere in the world be admitted to the US as long as any American employer was willing to hire them. Illegals already holding jobs in the US would not be deported or arrested but granted legal "guest worker" status.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-CO, vowed to fight the plan, which some administration supporters call a "guest worker" plan. "An amnesty by any other name is still an amnesty, regardless of what the White House wants to call it," said Tancredo, who is founder and chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus. "Their amnesty plan was dead on arrival when they sent it to Congress in January, and if they send the same pig with lipstick back to Congress next January, it will suffer the same fate."

Robert Goldsborough, president of Americans for Immigration Control, called the post-election resurrection of the president's plan a "November surprise" and vowed to fight it in Congress.

"This kind of post-election November surprise is a betrayal of the hopes and values of the conservative voters who provided President Bush with his margin of victory. Those Americans who went to the polls to help him don't deserve this kind of treatment, and they're the ones we're going to mobilize to defeat this amnesty," he said.