Senate Votes Down Security-First Amendments to Immigration Bill

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

WASHINGTON — Supporters of immigration legislation predict the Senate will pass a bill giving millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Critics of the legislation aren't giving up, however, and say they'll keep trying to reshape it.

Taking that approach, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., planned to offer an amendment that would erect more fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border, an idea similar to one passed in December by the House.

But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Wednesday that lawmakers increasingly realize the need for a comprehensive plan that goes beyond trying to stop people at the border.

"If you just try to build a wall 30 feet high and 2,000 miles long, it will be insufficient. People will go up over it, around it, in order to get a job in this country," Frist said on CBS' "The Early Show."

As for those who oppose creating a temporary worker program, Frist said: "We've got one today, the problem is it's illegal, with hundreds of thousands of people working in this country illegally. So we need to get our hands around it."

In a win for supporters, what had been considered a poison pill provision before Easter was softened Tuesday by two of the bill's biggest critics and the defeats of two other proposals considered killer amendments left bill supporters smelling victory.