Free Republic

WASHINGTON - The Senate rejected a California Democrat's plan to allow the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country to remain, work and eventually become Americans, preserving a fragile bipartisan coalition needed to pass the bill. Several lawmakers who voted against the proposal offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record) on Tuesday said they did so reluctantly, but out of necessity to ensure survival of the broader immigration bill. The legislation is expected to win Senate passage Wednesday or Thursday. "This legislation is on the edge of the ledge as it is," said Sen. Arlen Specter (news,...

Washington -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein called the complicated Senate plan to legalize the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country "100 percent calculated to fail" and proposed Monday a simpler system based on a bar-coded orange card for anyone illegally in the country before January. "If we don't get this right, we're going to end up repeating the mistakes of the past," Feinstein said of the proposed immigration overhaul. Feinstein said the Senate's plan to split immigrants into three groups -- and treat each group differently -- is unworkable and predicted it would create a bureaucratic nightmare and would...