Posted on 04/07/2006 7:54:04 AM PDT by samcgwire
WASHINGTON
The Senate sidetracked sweeping immigration legislation Friday, leaving in doubt prospects for passing a bill offering the hope of citizenship to millions of men, women and children living in the United States illegally.
A carefully crafted compromise that supporters had claimed could win an overwhelming majority received only 38 of the 60 votes necessary to protect it from weakening amendments by opponents.
Republicans were united in the 38-60 parliamentary vote but Democrats, who have insisted on no amendments, lost six votes from their members.
Democrats and Republicans had been blaming each other Friday for problems stalling the progress of bill.
Scheduled votes to break the logjam failed and both supporters and opponents of the bill will have to wait until Congress returns from a two-week spring recess, if then.
"It's not gone forward because there's a political advantage for Democrats not to have an immigration bill," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
He said Democrats perceive a benefit in having only a GOP-written House bill that criminalizes being an illegal immigrant. That bill has prompted massive protests across the country, including a march by 500,000 people in Los Angeles last month.
Democrats blamed Republicans for insisting on amendments that would weaken a compromise that Senate leaders in both parties had celebrated Thursday.
"This opportunity is slipping through our hands like grains of sand," said assistant Senate Democratic leader Dick Durbin of Illinois.
President Bush had applauded the Senate's efforts to draft a comprehensive immigration bill. "I would encourage the members to work hard to get the bill done prior to the upcoming break," he said Thursday.
The election-year legislation is designed to enhance border security and regulate the flow of future temporary workers as well as affect the lives of illegal immigrants.
It separates illegal immigrants now in the U.S. into three categories.
Illegal immigrants here more than five years could work for six years and apply for legal permanent residency without having to leave the country. Those here two years to five years would have to go to border entry points sometime in next three years, but could immediately return as temporary workers. Those here less than two years would have to leave and wait in line for visas to return.
The bill also provides a new program for 1.5 million temporary agriculture industry workers over five years. It includes provisions requiring employers to verify they've hired legal workers and calls for a "virtual" fence of surveillance cameras, sensors and other technology to monitor the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border.
The acrimony in the Senate at Thursday night's end was a sharp contrast to the accolades 14 members of both parties traded just hours earlier when they announced their compromise.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist called it tragic "that we in all likelihood are not going to be able to address a problem that directly affects the American people."
The House has passed legislation limited to border security, but Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and other leaders have signaled their willingness in recent days to broaden the bill in compromise talks with the Senate.
But Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said anything with what he called amnesty would not get agreement from a majority in the House.
The immigration debate has given the American public a glimpse of what may lay ahead in 2008 GOP presidential politics.
Frist, R-Tenn., a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sought to establish more conservative credentials when he initially backed a bill limited to border security. At the same time, he has repeatedly called for a comprehensive bill _ adopting Bush's rhetoric _ and involved himself in the fitful negotiations over the past several days.
Ha-hah! Boy, when Frist was yammering about "compromise" the other day, he wasn't fooling around.
So is that it for the Senate's "pomp and circumstance" show for this year, and that this matter is now stalled until election time? I get the impression that all of this was just to show us peons how much they care, and then back off so's not to P.O. any potential voters. Pretty sad, if that's the case.
Ultimately, though, it's better to make no law than a bad law, as the saying goes.
I'll remember YOU and THIS POST when it does happen.
"How many terrorists have walked into America since 9-11?
How many have carried out attacks after doing so?
How many were caught either entering or after entering the southern border? (forget that one, it's a trick question. You wouldn't know the answer).
Some hysterics are not necessary."
This was more of a "Hey, we have them protesting, maybe we can get all their votes, too!" opportunity that a couple of Republican Patriot Senators blocked!
You're welcome. You were right on the money: employers intentionally breaking the law are the problem, the key.
It's a pathetic, "toothless" law only because it's not enforced. We don't need no steenkin' new laws from our critters: they should just enforce that one.
But they won't. why? Remember that scene from the movie `Splash', Darryl Hannah as a mermaid, and the Tom Hanks' character, owner of a wholesale produce company, attends a banquet where the president is speaking?
Guys like that are telling the government: who you gonna listen to? America? or me and my Bejamins?
I worked with some Mexican `cholos' at a picture frame company in El Cajon (east of San Diego) years ago. Every day at quittin' time, they'd make a run for the border, then back across in the AM, it was that easy.
Probably what was hoped for all along!
That is your answer? Feh.
I know you are disappointed that your bill which was supported by the likes of Hillary, Kennedy and Reid failed, but don't give up hope; your heroes will try again.
This is why the Republicans must lead, to remove that perception. Call the demonrats out, get them on record.
I suppose you think you've done that through brilliant and compelling arguments like "No you don't" and "And I won't either"
The real fact is, true conservatives want to solve the problem by enforcing existing laws and NOT creating even MORE expensive federal programs to waste even MORE of our tax dollars solving an issue that already has a solution. What really drives me up the wall is people who claim to be conservative, but eagerly turn to the federal government to solve all their problems.
Thanks. This is what I was looking for.
An anti-religious federal prosecutor can use it against the Church.
Let's enforce our clear laws already in the books and stop grandstanding and posturing.
Freeper by bjcintennessee posted this current law:
Federal Immigration and Nationality Act Section 8 USC 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv)(b)(iii)Section 274 felonies under the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, INA 274A(a)(1)(A):
A person (including a group of persons, business, organization, or local government) commits a federal felony when she or he:
* assists an alien s/he should reasonably know is illegally in the U.S. or who lacks employment authorization, by transporting, sheltering, or assisting him or her to obtain employment, or
* encourages that alien to remain in the U.S. by referring him or her to an employer or by acting as employer or agent for an employer in any way, or
* knowingly assists illegal aliens due to personal convictions
BTTT
All this is really part of a larger problem that came up after attempts to sanction. The vast majority of the illegal population now work for employers who are under the radar and have no connection to the legitimate business world via Federal "71" number or even a bank account that can be monitored by the Fed.
All attempts in the past have simply created a employer/employee dynamic that cannot be regulated in any way.
The "work visa" idea was created or intended to bridge this gap by employer verification which would lead to the movement of the underground into the mainstream tax and regulate system. This would increase SS and both Federal and State ans well as local tax bases.
Without the "worker" visa idea or it's equivalent, there is no carrot and thus no way to move the underground out of the shadows.
So, it's a waste of time and effort to simply increase border security without the other measures.
No, we've done it throgh brilliant and compelling arguments about simply enforcing the law.
I know that's a tough concept for you to get your thoughts around, but there you go...
If it weren't the FedGov's *responsibility* to do it (Protect the States from invasion), and if the courts weren't packed with Communist America-haters, then the States WOULD BE!
Why doesn't some Congresscritter submit a simple bill to enforce existing laws? Simple and to the point.
Who could vote against it? How could they? Wouldn't the real agendas come out?
Either way they'll keep coming. At least they won't have a path to citizenship.
Tancredo/Spence for President (NO MORE RINOs!)
What a crock.
"Solving all our problems"?
If protecting the borders of the United States is not the preeminent duty of our federal government, just what exactly is?
You're being utterly disingenuous.
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