Posted on 05/24/2006 8:29:43 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to limit debate on election-year immigration legislation, clearing the way for final passage later this week of a bill that calls for tougher border security as well as an eventual chance at citizenship for millions of men and women in the country illegally.
The vote to advance the measure was 73-25, 13 more than the 60 needed.
Despite the controversy surrounding the bill, the outcome was not a surprise. Even some of the bill's opponents said they were satisfied they had been given ample opportunity over past week to try and give the bill a more conservative cast.
Final passage would set the stage for a difficult negotiation with the House, which passed legislation last year that exposes all illegal immigrants to criminal felony charges.
President Bush has repeatedly urged Congress to approve an immigration bill that generally follows the approach taken by the Senate, and some senators expressed optimism that a deal could be reached.
"The politics of solving this problem is better than the politics of doing nothing," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C.
"Does someone have a better approach? Not yet. But we're still open for business," said Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Across the Capitol, senior White House strategist Karl Rove met for the second straight week with the GOP rank and file. Asked whether he had made any progress, he told reporters afterward, "Could be."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., predicted before the vote that the bill would receive "not overwhelming support but very strong support" and that a legislative compromise would be reached with the House.
"The problem is too big, with millions of people coming across the border and with hundreds dying as they come across the border," Frist said on NBC's "Today" show. "We as a governing body cannot simply turn and look the other way and say we're not going to do anything about it."
"It looks very much like the bill is on a path to conclusion," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., one of the authors of the compromise bill.
On Tuesday, the Senate called for tougher employer penalties on businesses that hire illegal workers. The vote was 58-40.
Employers who do not use a new computerized system could be fined $200 to $600. The system would include information from the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and Homeland Security Department.
There would be $20,000 fines for hiring illegal immigrants once the new screening system is in place, double the current maximum. Repeated violators could be sentenced to prison terms of up to three years.
Congress passed employer sanctions as part of the 1986 amnesty law, but they were never fully enforced and workers and employers got around them with fraudulent documents.
The Senate bill requires employers to check Social Security numbers and the immigration status of all new hires within 18 months after money is provided to the Homeland Security Department to expand the electronic system for screening workers.
Workers' information would have to be submitted to the electronic system within three days after the worker is hired. The Homeland Security Department would have to confirm the worker is legal or tell the employer the worker can't be immediately confirmed as a legal worker within 10 days.
The measure provides workers opportunities to contest the system's determination and to correct information that may be incorrectly flagging them as illegal workers. It also protects employers from liability if the screening system makes a mistake.
"This is probably the single most important thing we can do in terms of reducing the inflow of undocumented workers, making sure we can enforce in a systematic way rules governing who gets hired," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said Tuesday.
Opponents said the verification system would take years to implement and complained that workers deemed illegal could still hold onto jobs until their appeals are exhausted.
The House passed a bill in December that would impose fines on employers of undocumented workers ranging from $5,000 to $40,000. But, unlike the Senate bill, the House measure would require employers to screen all employees — an estimated 140 million people — instead of only new hires.
D.O.A.
Any idea yet on who voted which way?
Screw the hundreds dying as they come across the border what about the hundreds of citizens that are killed every year BY illegal aliens?
"The politics of solving this problem is better than the politics of doing nothing," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C.
Yeah it's all about politics, has nothing to do with what is right for America and American citizens. What a piece of work he is.
Try numbersusa. They usually have the vote tally up pretty fast.
Or more specifically who voted with the Democrats.
Who voted against America is more like it.
Not yet, still waiting waiting for vote to get posted on senate.gov site...
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/a_three_sections_with_teasers/votes.htm
It should be up shortly.
I hope you're right. This stinking pile of treason must be flushed by the House.
Just when did Lindsey Graham turn into such a dickweed?
What concerns me is that the violence in Mexico is likely to cross the border.
Murders in Nuevo Laredo increased from 45 to 145 in a year, as the drug gangs shoot it out. It will soon spread on the Mexican side to Matamoros and, I fee will begin to affect the Valley. Since there are hordes of "snowbirds" in the valley, they will serve as a tripwire to alter the rest of the country what it coming their way.
The day he was "born".
Kay Bailey Hutcheson just announced on the Mark Davis Show (of WBAP 1080AM, Dallas/Ft. Worth) that she was going to offer an amendment that would require any alien desiring to enter our country to apply of a visa. The alien would have to show a job opening that the U.S. employer could not fill with a U.S citizen and the visa would be good for 10 months only. At that time, the alien woudl have to leave the countrya dn cound not return until they reapplied under the same restrictions as the earlier time - a willing (and NEEDING) employer and only for 10 months. NO CITIZENSHIP possibilities at all! It will be voted on tomorrow.
To Snarlin' Arlen - This seems like a better approach to me!
Call it the Goodbye Sweet America Act. Get ready to welcome 130 million new amigos.
Vote em out.
Day 3.
..the House of Representatives in Conference are our last best hope in this process...
In order to change an undesirable behavior, the punishment should be immediate and severe enough to equal the crime.
If we start rounding them up now, we could have most of them gone within 6 months.
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