Senate Passes Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill

The Senate voted 62 to 36 to approve compromise immigration reform legislation (S. 2611, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006), thereby setting the stage for what will likely be a contentious House/Senate conference, in which the Senate-passed bill will now have to be harmonized with the harsh, enforcement-only bill (H.R. 4437) passed by the House in December. Despite attempts by a handful of Senators to fundamentally alter the bill that was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in March, the basic architecture of comprehensive immigration reform survived intact after nearly four weeks of Senate Floor debate on the measure and votes on more than 40 amendments.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved election-year immigration legislation Monday that clears the way for millions of undocumented workers to seek U.S. citizenship without having to first leave the country.

After days of street demonstrations that stretched from California to the gounds of the U.S. Capitol, the committee also voted to strip out proposed criminal penalties for residents found to be in this country illegally.

The Senate will begin work today on legislation to overhaul the nation's immigration laws and plug its porous borders, but a bipartisan push to create a new guest worker program has put Senate Republicans on a collision course with their counterparts in the House.

A growing number of governors, along the border and beyond, are sharpening their complaints about the flood of immigrants pouring into their states, pushing the Bush administration and Congress for action.