Senate Backs Plan for Border

Wall Street Journal

By Kristina Peterson

June 24, 2013

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323998604578566053024135598.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The Senate on Monday backed a plan to toughen security along the U.S. border with Mexico, in a key test vote expected to help propel a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration laws to a broad victory in the chamber later this week.

 

The Senate voted 67-27 to advance the border-security plan, with 15 Republicans backing the measure and no Democrats opposing it. Monday's vote showed growing momentum for the comprehensive immigration bill, if not a precise gauge of support. Travel delays prevented six senators from voting, including two Democrats expected to support the bill. While lawmakers credited the border-security amendment for picking up more GOP support for an immigration overhaul, several Republicans' votes were expected to hinge on the fate of other amendments that could be addressed this week.

 

The border-security measure, written by Republican Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee, would roughly double the number of border-control agents to nearly 40,000 and require 700 miles of fencing on the Mexican border, among other steps. It lays out border-security measures that must be in place before people now in the country illegally could be given permanent legal status, or green cards.

 

"The bill has been improved dramatically tonight by this vote, there's no question," Mr. Corker told reporters Monday evening. "My sense is we're going to pass an immigration bill out of the United States Senate."

 

The vote on the broader immigration bill is set for Friday but could come a day earlier, depending on whether Democratic leaders and Republican opponents of the legislation can reach an agreement to wrap up debate ahead of schedule.

 

The immigration bill needs 60 votes to clear the Senate, but supporters are hoping for a more resounding victory, with as many as 70 votes, in order to pressure the more-conservative House to act. To build support, authors of the border-security measure included provisions aimed at resolving specific concerns of wavering lawmakers.

 

One change sought by Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) would ensure that some grants from a border-security program aimed at enhancing cooperation among law-enforcement agencies can be directed to the border with Canada, rather than largely diverted to the Southern border.

 

Alaska Sens. Mark Begich, a Democrat, and Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, backed the border-security measure after negotiators included a provision that would help Alaska's seafood companies hire seasonal foreign workers on four-month visas. Another measure would expedite the hiring of foreign workers for three-year stints under the bill's new low-skilled guest-worker program.

 

To ease the concerns from Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, the bill includes a provision that would send states $1.5 billion over two years to create summer and year-round job opportunities for people ages 16-24 from low-income households.

 

Still, not all lawmakers saw their favored provisions folded into the bill.

 

The concerns of Sen. Rob Portman weren't included in the border-security deal, so the Ohio Republican introduced an amendment Monday designed to improve the accuracy of E-Verify, the federal online database that companies will be required to use to confirm that employees are legal to work. Senate leaders were still discussing which additional amendments the chamber would vote on this week. Those could include Mr. Portman's measure, which is expected to draw bipartisan support.

 

Meanwhile, discussions continued over the bill's provisions on agricultural workers, with the hope of securing support from Republicans from Southeastern states, among them Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson of Georgia and Richard Burr of North Carolina.

 

Many Republican lawmakers oppose the bill and took to the Senate floor Monday to assail the new border-security provisions and to argue that the bill offers "amnesty'' by granting legal status to people who broke the law when they entered the country.

 

"The flawed framework of this bill remains 'immediate amnesty,' which will never be revoked," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), one of the bill's most vocal critics.

 

The Congressional Budget Office said in a letter Monday that it expected the border-security amendment to reduce the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. The budget agency didn't give a formal assessment of the amendment's cost, but said the amendment would add about $40 billion in federal spending over 10 years. The main bill is expected to reduce the federal budget deficit by $197 billion over the first decade, so the amendment would reduce those savings by a little less than $40 billion.

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