Immigration bill dies

Shaking his head as he waited for his bus ride home Thursday, Jesus Leyida expressed his frustration at the U.S. Senate's failure to pass an immigration reform bill that would have given legal status to him and most of the nation's roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants.

"Mucho blah, blah, blah," he said of the vote, which likely killed the bill for this session of Congress. In a 46-to-53 vote, supporters failed to get the 60 votes required by Senate rules to stop debate on the bill, allowing it to move to a final passage vote.

"Legal immigration is one of the top concerns of the American people, and Congress' failure to act on it is a disappointment," a grim-faced President Bush said after an appearance in Newport, R.I. "A lot of us worked hard to see if we couldn't find common ground. It didn't work."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., his party's lead negotiator on the bill, called its defeat "enormously disappointing for Congress and for the country." But, he added: "We will be back. This issue is not going away."

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who heads the House Judiciary subcommittee that was to write a version of the bill, said the Senate's inability to move forward "effectively ends comprehensive immigration reform efforts" for the next year and a half.

"The Senate voted for the status quo," the California Democrat said in a statement.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, voted against moving to a final vote, but Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, voted in favor of moving ahead.

Activists against illegal immigration had energetically lobbied against the bill, and in the days leading up to the vote, talk-radio hosts and bloggers had denounced the bill's proposed Z-visas, which would legalize most of the nation's undocumented if they paid fines and fees and could eventually lead to citizenship.

The bill also would have bolstered border security and worksite enforcement, created a new guest worker program and eliminated or limited many family reunification green cards in favor of a point system in which applicants would be judged on qualifications. Thursday marked the second failed attempt to vote on the bill, which had been revived earlier in the week by a 64-35 vote.

"The Senate still had significant work to do on this bill," Bennett said. "There were a number of pending provisions I favored, including more money for border enforcement and important revisions to the temporary worker program. I would have voted against the final bill if they were not adopted."

Bennett said because Thursday's vote stops the Senate from being able to consider "some of these critical issues, I don't object to the death of the bill in its present form," but he acknowledges there are still serious problems with immigration that need to be addressed.