Senate Passes Immigration Bill

WASHINGTON (By Bill Brubaker, Washington Post) May 25, 2006 — The Senate today passed landmark but contentious immigration legislation that would tighten security on United States borders while allowing guest workers to enter the country and giving millions of illegal immigrants a path toward gaining U.S. citizenship.

In a rare show of bipartisan, election-year cooperation, the bill was approved 62-36.

The vote sets the stage for a summer clash with House conservatives, who passed a starkly different immigration measure in December.

The House bill seeks to punish illegal immigrants and any employers who hire them, and it does not include a guest-worker program.

"This is not the final scene of this blockbuster that we have on the Senate floor," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned before the vote began late this afternoon. "There is another act to go."

Lawmakers from both parties predict the next act will be watched closely by voters as midterm elections approach that possibly could shift control of Congress from Republican to Democrat. Polls show most Americans disapprove of the job members of Congress are doing.

If House and Senate members can't get together on a compromise, the political "consequences . . . should properly be very high," said Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.), who voted for the bill today.

The security piece of the Senate legislation would provide 6,000 National Guard troops to support Border Patrol agents, aerial surveillance and a 370-mile fence along the Mexican border.

The bill has a complex, three-tiered system for dealing with the nation's 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants.

Those who have lived in the United States five years or longer would be allowed to stay and apply for citizenship, provided they pay back taxes, learn English and have no serious criminal records.

Those here two to five years--about 2.8 million people--would eventually have to return to a point of entry in Mexico or Canada and apply for a green card, which could allow their immediate return.

The roughly 2 million immigrants who have been in the United States illegally for less than two years would be ordered to return to their countries.

Some proponents of the Senate bill privately acknowledge that the three-tiered plan is an ungainly compromise that resulted from long negotiations designed to build and hold a centrist coalition in the Senate.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said this week it is not realistic "to assume that, first, the Department of Homeland Security is going to be able to go out and deport 2 million people, and then secondly, to ensure that the other 2.8 million leave to go back for the 'touchback' program."

Many House members assert that the Senate version offers amnesty to immigrants who, they say, should be treated as felons, rather than rewarded, for illegally entering the United States.

But some House members say compromise with the Senate is possible, if only because it would not be feasible to prosecute--and deport--millions of illegal immigrants.

The immigration debate has divided many Republicans--from the president on down. President Bush has drawn criticism from conservative Republicans because he favors a guest-worker program, similar to the one included in the Senate bill.

A preview of the unfolding Senate-House battle was evident on the Senate floor this afternoon during debate over a final-hour amendment, introduced by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), that would deny an earned income tax credit to illegal immigrants who--as a result of the Senate bill--would be working legally in the United States.

Sessions called the bill a multi-billion-dollar "budget buster" that would grow even costlier if these tax credits--available to workers who have children--were granted.

"It's not necessary that we provide this . . . outlay from our Treasury directly to people who've come here illegally and reward them in that fashion," Sessions said.

Some Republicans rose to attack the amendment.

"These people are here to work," McCain said. "And they're doing jobs that most of us don't have the will to do. . . . They're not risking their lives to come into this country with a goal of freeloading off of us."

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) said even violent felons who have paid their debt to society are not denied earned income tax credits.

"Coming across the border illegally [is] a non-violent offense," Graham said. " . . . How do you look [illegal immigrants] in the eye . . . and tell them that you're being punished through the tax code in a way a rapist, murderer or a drug dealer is not?"

The amendment failed by a 60-37 vote.

But another amendment, which would deny tax credits to newly legal immigrants for taxes paid while they had illegal status, was approved by a 50-47 vote.

Anticipating the clash this summer with the House, White House political adviser Karl Rove met privately with House Republicans yesterday, urging them to move closer to the Senate position, which President Bush embraces. He got a cold reception, according to people who attended.

Senate and House negotiators are expected to begin their work reconciling their differences in June.