Senate Lines Up Solid Majority for Immigration Bill

Los Angeles Times

By Lisa Moscaro and Brian Bennett

June 24, 2013

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration-overhaul-20130625,0,807202.story

A sweeping immigration bill gained the lopsided Senate majority that supporters hope will pressure reluctant House Republicans, clearing a key test vote Monday and moving along an all-but-certain path to passage in the Senate this week.

 

The 67-27 tally, with 15 Republicans joining all the Democrats who voted, largely validated the strategy set by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of the bill's chief architects, who had sought to reach out to Republicans at the cost of sidetracking some liberal priorities.

 

But the vote also showed how divided Republicans remain on the issue, with opponents sharply criticizing those in their party who have sided with the immigration overhaul effort.

 

Many Republicans in Congress have hesitated to support a bill that critics in their party deride as amnesty for the 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status. Others think the party must back immigration changes to fix a dysfunctional system and to avoid alienating the country's fast-growing Latino population.

 

To win over reluctant Republicans, Schumer and other backers of the bill accepted a revision that would spend $46 billion to improve security on the border with Mexico. Some immigrant advocates and liberal groups decried that as unnecessary spending that would militarize the border.

 

A top Democrat, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, said the border buildup "reads like a Christmas wish list for Halliburton." Defense contractors, he added last week, were surely "high-fiving at the prospect of all the spending."

 

Monday's vote was on a motion to end debate on the revised bill and cleared the way for final passage this week, possibly after a few more amendments are considered.

 

Several senators missed Monday's vote because they were traveling to Washington. In the end, the bill seems likely to gain the 70-vote majority that Schumer and others had been aiming for.

 

Though many Republicans hailed the border security plan as a key improvement, others denounced it as a fraud. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a chief opponent of the immigration bill, said the measure was a "fig leaf" that would not provide security on the Mexican border but would allow Republican senators "to tell gullible constituents that we have done something."

 

Six-term Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) argued that the chamber was poised to repeat the mistakes of the last major immigration overhaul in 1986, when President Reagan signed legislation that granted amnesty to those in the country without legal status.

 

"I know firsthand that we screwed up, and I was certain that other members in this body could learn from our mistakes," Grassley said.

 

The bill's prospects in the House are uncertain. Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) says he thinks it is crucial for the party to act on immigration to appeal to Latino and minority voters before the 2016 presidential election.

 

However, rank-and-file Republicans in the House have shown little interest in providing immigrants who are in the country illegally with a way to become citizens.

 

President Obama met with business leaders at the White House on Monday as he pressed for the bill, his top second-term priority.

 

"All of us, I think, recognize that now is the time to get comprehensive immigration reform done — one that involves having very strong border security; that makes sure that we're holding employers accountable to follow the rules; one that provides earned citizenship for those 11 million," Obama said. "It's not a bill that represents everything that I would like to see; it represents a compromise."

 

Under the bill, immigrants would follow a 10-year process to gain permanent legal status with green cards. After 13 years, they could become citizens.

 

But before they could get legal status, five conditions would have to be met: hiring nearly 20,000 more Border Patrol officers, completing 700 miles of border fence, implementing a way for employers to verify the legal status of new hires, installing a system at all major airports to help track expired visas, and bolstering the resources of the Border Patrol, including new technology.

 

The so-called border surge, proposed by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and John Hoeven (R-N.D.), would dramatically change life in U.S. communities near Mexico, adding 24-hour unarmed drone patrols and doubling the number of Border Patrol officers — all paid for with new taxes on immigrants and their employers.

 

Critics have said lawmakers are simply throwing money at the problem of illegal crossings at a time of budget austerity, noting that 40% of the immigrants in the country without legal status did not cross the southern border but entered on legal visas that have since expired.

 

The bill would also expand the exit-visa tracking system to all major U.S. airports as a way to identify immigrants who stay after their visas have expired. To curb illegal immigration, the bill would add new guest-worker programs, including for agricultural workers and low-skilled maids and landscapers, and require employers to verify the legal status of all new hires.

 

In addition to the border plan, drafters of the bill incorporated several dozen other amendments aimed at winning the votes of specific senators.

 

A Leahy measure would waive visa fees and expedite processing for applicants with "extraordinary ability in the arts or extraordinary achievement in motion picture or television production."

Tax measures proposed by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) include one that would prevent immigrants who have been paying into Social Security under false identification from drawing those benefits at retirement.

 

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) got her measure ensuring that grants for police departments would be given to communities on the northern border as well as the southern one.

 

The two Alaska senators, Democrat Mark Begich and Republican Lisa Murkowski, pushed to expand the number of foreign visas for their state's seafood processing industry.

 

After objecting that the bill would allow an influx of foreign workers even as the nation's unemployment rate remains high, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) had his proposal for a $1.5-billion youth jobs program included.

 

Earlier versions of the bill included similar specialty provisions.

 

One, introduced by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), one of the bill's original authors, would have lifted the cap on the number of visas for ski and snowboard instructors.

 

Another original author, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), won a provision that would allow specialized foreign mechanics for cruise ships to qualify for 90-day work permits. Rubio, from hurricane-vulnerable Florida, also inserted a measure that would allow foreigners to apply for 90-day work permits to repair damage after major disasters.

 

"Trying to secure provisions that meet state interests is hardly new behavior," said Angela Kelley, an immigration expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington.

 

"Having a big bipartisan vote on a tough issue like immigration — that is new," she said. "Now my hope is they will continue their enthusiasm for the issue once it has cleared their chamber and send a message to their brethren in the House that they need to do the same thing."

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