Senate's new immigration bill thick with last-minute amendments

By Michael Doyle and Margaret Talev
MCCLATCHY NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON — Foreign hockey players, territorial Mexican politicians and FBI bean-counters now have something in common: a stake in the Senate's big immigration reform bill.

There is a lot of fine print in the 600-plus-page bill passed this week. It's true, as senators say, that the legislation would erect more border barriers and seek to better manage the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. But it also includes perks to the privileged, blurs some border security provisions, and makes other substantive changes that activists on both sides of the debate are only now beginning to understand.

Some of these lesser-known provisions were included days before and simply got little attention because of the scope of the overall bill. Others were adopted just minutes before the bill's vote Thursday evening, part of a 100-page-plus "manager's amendment."

More minor-league athletes from other countries could get visas under the bill. More veterans could be recruited for border duty. The U.S. government would need to consult with various Mexican officials before new border fences could go in. Frequent Western Hemisphere travelers would get a new traveling card. More Canadian power-line workers could enter if they have received "significant training."

Two-thousand Christian Iraqis in the Detroit area who now face deportation — and more in other parts of the country — could become eligible for legal permanent residency status. That provision seeks to undo a judge's finding that religious minorities who came here seeking asylum from Saddam Hussein's regime and got caught in an immigration backlog no longer have claims simply because the Iraqi leader was deposed.

Collectively, such provisions showcase another side to how Congress works, illustrating how votes are gathered, deals struck and negotiations anticipated.