WASHINGTON - Both of North Dakota's Democratic senators are opposing immigration legislation on the Senate floor this week that would create a guest worker program allowing new immigrants into the country.

The bill could expand guest-worker programs for hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year. Siding with business leaders looking for a steady supply of workers, President Bush has asked Congress to approve a program that would allow illegal immigrants to work legally, though temporarily, in the United States. He says they will work jobs that Americans will not perform.

"I see this pool of immigrants being brought here in the interest of corporations being able to hire cheap labor," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, who asserts the bill could allow 4.7 million additional low-wage workers into the United States in the next six years. "That diminishes wages for all Americans."

Dorgan said he has filed an amendment to strike the provision allowing additional workers into the United States.

Though many Senate Democrats support the guest worker proposal, Sen. Kent Conrad said he would support Dorgan's amendment.

"It's got the cart before the horse," Conrad said of the guest worker program. "The first thing we've got to do is secure our borders."

The legislation also would give an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States an opportunity for citizenship.

On Wednesday, members of the Senate continued to negotiate on a bill by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., that would put immigrants in the United States before Jan. 7, 2004, on a path toward citizenship if they maintain jobs and meet other conditions.

Bush, who called on the senators Wednesday to settle their differences, has said the legislation should not include an amnesty provision that provides automatic citizenship.

The McCain-Kennedy bill has heavy Democratic backing and some Republican support. But enough Republicans consider it amnesty that they could block a vote on it. Conservative Republicans offered their own proposals as part of the negotiations.

The House has passed a bill that would shore up border security by putting the military on the border, requiring employers to verify they have hired legal workers and making it a felony to be in the country illegally.