I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I was lukewarm about the immigration bill to begin with and hoped that amendments could be added which would make it a bill I could support. Well, after all of the amendments were thrown aside (including some god awful Democrat ones, thank god) Reid is going to push the bill through and I highly doubt it will pass cloture. Meaning….it goes no where.
The Senate’s revived legislation to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants faces a critical test Thursday after surviving potentially fatal challenges.
Attempts from the right and left to alter key elements of the delicate bipartisan compromise failed Wednesday, including a Republican proposal to deny illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and Democratic bids to reunite legal immigrants with family members.
The Senate killed, by a 56-41 vote, an amendment by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., to provide more green cards for parents of U.S. citizens. By a 55-40 margin, it tabled a proposal by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., to give family members of citizens and legal permanent residents more credit toward green cards in a new merit-based points system.
A make-or-break procedural vote was set for Thursday, however, as the Senate plowed through amendments that supporters hoped would address waverers’ concerns.
I do not support the current bill in it’s current form. While I haven’t been as fervent in my opposition to this bill as some of my fellow conservative bloggers it was my hope that it could be tweaked to make it work…..hope is gone now.
The fate of U.S. immigration legislation was cast into doubt when at least six senators who helped revive the proposed overhaul said they either oppose or are leaning against a move to permit a vote on final passage. …
Republicans Richard Burr of North Carolina and Christopher Bond of Missouri and Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska said they oppose permitting a vote on final passage. Virginia Democrat Jim Webb and Republicans John Ensign of Nevada and Pete Domenici of New Mexico said they were leaning that way.
So buh bye to this bill.
And good riddance.
UPDATE
Another reason this bill is going nowhere:
U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) released Wednesday a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) which says the new Senate immigration bill contains a major loophole in border security. Supporters of the bill say it provides $4.4 billion in immediate mandatory spending for border enforcement, but according to the CRS analysis, the funds could also be used immediately to implement the amnesty provisions [of the] bill.
“This is just another example of how this bill claims to do one thing but does something else entirely. It’s another example of an empty promise being used to buy votes for amnesty,” said Senator DeMint. “The supporters of this bill have been running around trying to convince people that this money will be used to secure the border first, but now we know that’s not the case. If you read the fine print, the bill says this money can also be used for amnesty.
According to the CRS report provided to Senator DeMint, the mandatory spending in the bill could immediately be used for Z visas. It says, “(r)eceiving, processing, and adjudicating applications for the Z visa authorized by Title VI of the Act is one of the trigger mechanisms outlined in Section 1; this means that funding from the Immigration Security Account could be used for this purpose.”
In addition, the report says the funds could be used for Y visas and other programs once the trigger mechanisms have been met but it does not require the Secretary of Homeland Security to certify the trigger. The report says, “S. 1639 does not explicitly stipulate whether the certification required by Section 1 would have to take place prior to funding being made available for the additional purposes outlined in Section 2(C).”
“Not only can this money be used for things other than border security and enforcement, it looks like another backdoor trick to promote amnesty,” said Senator DeMint. “If Congress appropriates money later this year for the border, the money provided in this bill will turn into a slush fund the Administration can use to ensure illegal immigrants are legalized.”
If it doesn’t provide for security FIRST then flush it.
UPDATE II 06-28-07 0815PST
Cloture vote is going on in the Senate regarding the Immigration bill, so far 21 votes NO on cloture.
UPDATE III
Well over the 40 votes needed to deny cloture, bill is defeated.
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Great News! I will do my part in the future, by personally contributing to the coffers of those running against Lindsey Graham and Trent Lott, in their re-election runs for the US Senate. Hell, I would contribute to Marion S. Barry Jr., rather than put up with these shit-heads again!
Unfortunately Jihad Gene, the most viable candidate to run against Graham in the primary here, our State Treasurer Thomas Ravenal, just got busted for cocaine distribution.
And his co-conspirator has the same name as myself. Fortunately, they published the guys photo and I don’t think too many people will confuse me with a 25 year old black guy.
Anyway, we’ll know what happens to this bill in a couple of hours. It’s amazing that Senator Reid brought up a three hundred plus page amendment for debate that wasn’t even written yet and no one had read. How embarrassed he must have been when a Republican Senator asked to read it. How dare that GOP upstart want to know what is in this bill!
As I’ve said before, there were many good things in this bill and I believe we can pass a bill on those issues we agree. We don’t need some massive secret bill that clearly would be amnesty and loaded with billions of liberal goodies.
From Jim DeMints site:
After the Senate voted to cut off debate on the question of whether to resurrect the Senate immigration bill, Senator Reid set up unique debate process that guarantees votes several hand-picked amendments but blocks consideration of all others. Senator Reid used a parliamentary tool called a “clay pigeon†to divide a giant amendment into multiple amendments and then moved to block all others. No other member of the Senate besides Reid could have accomplished all of this without being stopped by another Senator. No other Majority Leader in history has done this.
“Republicans need to take a step back and realize what happened today. Senator Reid turned the Senate into the House and fundamentally undermined minority rights,†said Senator DeMint. “I was always told the Senate was the saucer that cooled the pot, but Senator Reid is forcing us to drink straight from the spout. Republicans better wake up soon or they can expect Senator Reid to use this tactic in the future to raise taxes, increase spending, and weaken our national security.â€Â
Lindsay Grahm just said on the floor: “this is good as it gets”—– another words, now that we’ve crammed this pathetic legislation down the people’s throats, swallow it!
Reid didn’t “get it” the first time around that limiting ammendments to a small group of preselected senators was not going to produce a consensus or SUPPORT. But Reid’s lack of leadership once again will bring this bill to another sad end of no cloture.
Back to the drawing board——fine with me.
We don’t need any amnesty bill. We just need to enforce the laws we have. And build the fence that Congress already authorized.
Like Mike said, there are a lot of good elements to the immigration bill. Certainly there were a few holes that were easily correctable by tweaking the language. It’s a classic case of both sides not wanting to provide the leadership to get it done. By continually putting this off, it’s going to make the next effort much more difficult.
But, should we be so surprised. It’s the same method being applied to everything across the board.
Mike’s America-
Yeah, I heard. Trent Lott’s arrogance put me over the edge… bottom line….I’m a newly registered Independent voter…. You gotta earn me back ya Republican Senatorial Bit*hes!
NO TANGO DINERO FOR THE RNC!!! Perhaps, I would again contribute to the RNC, for the chance of seeing Trent Lott getting popped in the balls by his own Mississippi Goat Fence!!!
http://www.sunherald.com/278/story/81785.html
It wasn’t just predictable, it was guarenteed that instead of taking the obvious, simplest, least controversial, and probably the cheapest first step toward immigration reform, building the wall, our leaders jumped head first into the most complex and contentious aspects of the problem. They really love that briar patch.
Build the wall.
We have to control our border with Mexico.
This isn’t the Berlin Wall we’re talking about. It is a wall that allows us to decide who and how many immigrants we want entering our country – and when. Have as many check points as it takes to effectively screen who comes in and who goes out. But build a wall that makes sure anyone coming in, comes through a check point, not the desert.
Once we control how many people enter this country, we can deal with the other issues, amnesty etc., more or less at our leisure.
Point 2: terrorists. Build the wall!
Point 3: Mexico. They have to take action on their side or suffer consequences.