WASHINGTON – The Senate debate over a broad immigration compromise degenerated into bitter partisanship Tuesday as votes began on provisions of the measure.
“People are looking for excuses on the Republican side to kill this bill,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., hours before moving to force a test vote Thursday on the complex and contentious measure to speed its passage.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., an architect of the bipartisan legislation, called it “an extreme act of bad faith” and said Reid’s move would “risk the bill not passing at all.”
The sniping threatened to scuttle a bipartisan measure that’s facing numerous challenges from the right and left.
The bill would legalize an estimated 12 million unlawful immigrants while tightening border security and instituting new worksite enforcement measures to bar the hiring of illegal workers. The bill also creates a controversial guest worker program and a new point system for evaluating future immigrants based on their employability rather than family ties to U.S. residents.
The measure survived a major challenge Tuesday when the Senate defeated, 62-31, a Republican bid to make it harder for millions of illegal immigrants to qualify for green cards.
Twenty-three Republicans joined 38 Democrats and Independent Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont to oppose the amendment by Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo. The measure would have eliminated extra points toward green cards that illegal immigrants could get for owning a home, having health insurance and work records while they were in the U.S. illegally. Supporting Allard’s measure were 23 Republicans and eight Democrats.
A bipartisan group of senators voted to require employers to recruit Americans before hiring temporary workers from abroad. It passed 71-22, with only Republicans opposed.
Proponents were bracing for a close vote today on an effort by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to bar illegal immigrants already under court order for deportation from gaining legal status. Democrats were hoping to siphon support from the amendment by offering their own, more limited version that would only cut off those who were convicted felons, including gang members and sex offenders.
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