Senate blocks immigration bill (cloture vote fails, 14 votes short, 53-46)

WASHINGTON - The Senate drove a stake Thursday through President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections.

The bill's supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation, which critics assailed as offering amnesty to illegal immigrants. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate.

Senators in both parties said the issue is so volatile that Congress is highly unlikely to revisit it this fall or next year, when the presidential election will increasingly dominate American politics.

A similar effort collapsed in the Congress last year, and the House has not bothered with an immigration bill this year, awaiting Senate action.

The vote was a stinging setback for Bush, who advocated the bill as an imperfect but necessary fix of current immigration practices in which many illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the United States.

It was a victory for Republican conservatives who strongly criticized the bill's provisions that would have established pathways to lawful status for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. They were aided by talk radio and TV hosts who repeatedly attacked the bill and urged listeners to flood Congress with calls, faxes and e-mails.

The bill would have toughened border security and instituted a new system for weeding out illegal immigrants from workplaces. It would have created a new guest worker program and allowed millions of illegal immigrants to obtain legal status if they briefly returned home.

Bush, making a last-ditch bid to salvage the bill, called senators early Thursday morning to urge their support. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez approached senators as they entered and left the chamber shortly before the vote.

"We have been in contact with members of Congress over the past couple of days and the president has made it clear that this is important to him," White House spokesman Tony Snow said before the vote.

But GOP conservatives led the opposition. They repeatedly said the government must secure the borders before allowing millions of illegal aliens a path to legal status.

"Americans feel that they are losing their country ... to a government that has seemed to not have the competence or the ability to carry out the things that it says it will do," Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said in the debate's final hour.

Sen. Elizabeth H. Dole, R-N.C., said many Americans "don't have confidence" that borders, especially with Mexico, will be significantly tightened. "It's not just promises but proof that the American people want," Dole said.

But the bill's backers said border security and accommodations to illegal immigrants must go hand in hand.

"Year after year, we've had the broken borders," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "Year after year, we've seen the exploitation of workers. Year after year, we've seen the people who live in fear within our own borders. This is the opportunity to change it. Now is the time."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told colleagues that if the bill faltered, the political climate almost surely would not allow a serious reconsideration until 2009 or later. It would be highly unlikely, she said, "in the next few years to fix the existing system... We are so close."

Dear Senators,

Since S.1639 has been defeated, will the fence, vehicle barriers, and camera towers, previously approved, continue to be built??

As I understand it, only 2 miles, out of the 370 miles of fence previously appproved, have been built so far. If my memory is correct, 200 miles of vehicle barriers, and 70 camera towers, have also been previously approved.

Perhaps the administration, and the Senate, should heed the desires of the American people, and put these things on the front burner, and make sure they get funded, and built.

Could you please inform the American public as to the status of the above, and what the construction schedule might be. As you can probably tell by our response to the Immigration Bill, we really are concerned, and we do want to know.

Thank You.

Sincerely,

Regretably, there’s no chance that President Bush will enforce the laws. He’s been doing so for the past couple of weeks, but will predictably stop if he gives up on the shamnesty bill.

That means we need to elect new people. Immigration has been pretty far down on the list in the last few elections, because it was successfully portrayed as a racist issue, but I think that Kennedy and Bush have succeeded in pushing it to the top and changing the country’s mood.

Which gives us hope. I don’t know what Fred’s position used to be on immigration, for instance, but I think he may have enough sense to see that the whole country, liberal and conservative, is against what is going on, with the exception of maybe a 20% moonbat contingent. Blacks hate it. Unions hate it. Conservatives hate it. Workers hate it. Taxpayers hate it.

Bernie Sanders voted against closure today! Barbara Boxer is uncomfortable with the bill! I think we can show how the country feels by throwing Lindsey Graham and the half dozen worst offenders out of office. And maybe put a little pressure on some of the worst corporate offenders to mend their ways or suffer boycotts.

This administration is hopeless on these issues. The best we can do is to block any further idiocies. But we have good hopes of something better in 2008, if we play our cards right.

Actually, the most efficient way to deal with it immediately is simply to enforce the law.

I believe the real purpose behind the written-in-secret "immigration reform" monstrosity bill was to CIRCUMVENT enforcement of existing laws, because the Washington elites have now come to realize that their neglect of the illegal onslaught is overwhelming the nation.

There are already enough laws in place to deal with illegals - no problem there. And those laws could be properly administered, if the power elite decreed as much.

The problem is that ENFORCEMENT of those laws would ignite a caterwaul of protest from the left and from the business elites who depend on illegals to drive down the wage structure in this country.

Passage of the now-dead amnesty bill would have summarily nullified all exisiting American immigration laws and practices, replacing them with a simple open-borders "get here, and you're in" policy.

Any "restrictive" provisions in "shamnesty" would have been overlooked, or left "unfunded". Benign neglect with a wink of the eye.

This, too, was "part of their plan".

Shamnesty was never about secure borders or an orderly and legal pathway to American citizenship, or even "guest workers" per se. Instead, it was an attempt to "change the rules of the game" so such goals would never be reached.

The only "wall" their side wants built is one around those who protest that the immigration laws should be enforced, that our borders should be protected, and that the illegal invasion of America be stopped.

- John

CONGRATS, FREEPERS!

LET US KEEP EMPHATIC PRESSURE ON UNTIL ALL HINT OF THIS BS ABOUT THE "FAIRNESS" DOCTRINE [AS WELL AS ANY hints of controlling or taxing the internet] are also in the toilet.

LET US REMIND THEM ABOUT HOW WHOLESALE EXTREME LEFT WING, COMMUNIST, GLOBALIST CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, ALL MAJOR NEWSPAPERS etc. HAVE BEEN FOR A LONG TIME.

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