Immigration bill derailed in US Senate

WASHINGTON -- The Senate last night scuttled a sweeping immigration overhaul measure that would have tightened border security while legalizing 12 million undocumented immigrants, delivering a heavy blow to President Bush and greatly diminishing the chances of resolving the politically loaded issue before the 2008 elections.

The bill -- the product of painstaking and unusually bipartisan negotiations among senators and the White House -- failed to survive two efforts yesterday to cut off debate and force an up-or-down vote on the overall bill.

"It's time to scrap this mess of a bill," said Senator Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican and leading opponent of the measure. DeMint said he had tried to "improve" the bill with amendments and debate, but "unfortunately, this hasn't happened, and it's actually gotten worse."

The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said he was "deeply disappointed" at the loss, but indicated there was still a sliver of hope that the Senate could return to the bill and pass it.

"We spent so much time on this bill trying to make people happy we couldn't make happy," Reid said after the 55-to-45 vote failed to meet the 60-vote threshold to cut off debate and move to final passage. "I hope for the good of this country we can move forward in a positive manner to pass this legislation."

Critics of the measure said they wanted more time to offer amendments to the bill, and the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said last night that he thought his party's senators would allow an up-or-down vote if they simply had a chance to debate the issue longer.

"I think we are within a few days of getting to the end of what many would call a bipartisan accomplishment of this Congress," McConnell said. But Reid said opponents were trying to drag out debate to kill the bill and prevent Democrats from bringing up legislation on Iraq and energy policy.

The vote marks a significant personal loss for Bush, who has fought for nearly his entire presidency for an overhaul of American immigration policy. It also represents a disappointment for lawmakers in both parties who set aside partisan and ideological differences to craft what they called a "grand compromise."

"This is an emotional issue," said Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a key negotiator on the package, explaining why a measure backed by the White House and Senate leaders in both parties foundered. "In dealing with immigration, civil rights, and gay rights -- those three things bring out the raw emotions in the Senate and among the American people."

Both Kennedy and fellow Massachusetts Democrat John F. Kerry -- who raced back from his daughter's medical school graduation for the vote -- supported the bill.

The immigration measure would have given legal status immediately to most of the 12 million undocumented immigrants now in the country if they paid a $5,000 fine and if the heads of household returned to their home country at least once. Those immigrants would have been given a path to citizenship if they met certain other conditions -- such as learning English and passing a background check. They would have been forced to the back of the line behind others who had already applied to become naturalized American citizens.

The bill would also have allowed "guest workers" to work legally in the United States for two years at a time, as long as they returned to their home country for one year in between work periods. Further, the measure would have expanded the number of border patrol agents and imposed harsh penalties on employers who knowingly hired illegal workers.

Negotiators hoped the combination of a crackdown on illegal immigrants with a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants would attract enough votes to approve the measure.

But opponents -- who include nearly all the GOP candidates for president -- said the measure amounted to "amnesty" for millions of foreigners who broke the law and are living in the United States illegally.

Democrats, too, had misgivings about the bill, concerned that the "guest worker" program would create a permanent underclass of underpaid immigrants and drive down wages for American citizens.

Reid bluntly warned his colleagues earlier in the day that if the bill went down it would be viewed as another loss for President Bush -- and that GOP senators would take the blame.

"The headline is going to be, 'The president fails again,' " Reid said.

The measure was widely described as a bipartisan compromise, but no senator enthusiastically supported the entire bill, and even Kennedy said he didn't like some of the details. But Kennedy and others described it as the best chance they may have of strengthening border security, dealing with the 12 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States, and controlling the influx of foreign workers and other immigrants.

"We are trying to legalize the process. We are trying to get respect for the law and trying to ensure our national security," Kennedy told his colleagues during the long and bitter debate on the bill. "Just doing border protection is not enough," he said, because the country needs to have a "sensible approach" to current and prospective immigrants. "There has to be a comprehensive approach."

As yesterday's debate ground on, senators opposed to the entire bill continued to offer amendments, and Reid expressed concern that they were trying to make the measure so unpalatable that others would abandon their support. Backers of the bill also grumbled that foes were offering several versions of the same amendment to delay the process.

Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, agreed that senators should have the chance to offer amendments and debate the bill thoroughly. Because the measure was written in private by a team of senators and White House Cabinet members, it did not go through the normal process that would have allowed lawmakers to examine the bill and amend it as it was written.

But Lott also chastised his colleagues, saying they were dragging their feet on the debate and were refusing to accept that not everything in the long, complex bill would please everyone.

"We should not get all in a twit because we made one mistake or didn't get everything we wanted," Lott said on the Senate floor. "To try to kill [the bill] with all these amendments for the purpose of killing it to me is not an appropriate way to proceed," he said.

"Are we men or mice? Are we going to slither away from this issue and hope for some epiphany to happen?" he asked.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, this story about the Senate's action on an immigration package misstated the vote to cut off debate. The vote was 45 to 50, which was 15 votes short of the number needed to limit debate and move to a final vote on the bill.