The bipartisan coalition behind a contentious overhaul of immigration laws stuck together on a critical early series of test votes Thursday, turning back challenges from conservative critics as the Senate Judiciary Committee refined legislation to secure the nation’s borders and offer eventual citizenship to millions living illegally in the United States.
The panel rejected three attempts by opponents of the bill to impose tougher conditions on border security before unauthorized immigrants could apply for legal status. Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona — part of a bipartisan group that helped draft the measure — joined all 10 Democrats in blocking each of the changes.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican who has yet to announce a position on the overall legislation, opposed one of the proposed changes but backed others.
Assuming the core political alignment remains intact, the committee is expected to approve the measure within two weeks and clear the way for an epic showdown on the Senate floor in June.
Painstakingly negotiated by a bipartisan “Gang of Eight,” the measure would clear the way for tens of thousands of new high-tech and lesser-skilled workers to enter the country while requiring all employers to check the legal status of their workers. But it was the core trade-off — securing the border against future illegal immigration while setting up a 13-year process by which immigrants unlawfully in the country could qualify for citizenship — that generated the most controversy.
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat who helped draft the bill, said it would “change our policy so that the people who are needed to help our economy grow can come into this country, and at the same time we will note that when families are divided the humane thing to do is bring those families back together.
Republican critics made no claim they can defeat the bill in committee and concentrated instead on casting doubt on assertions that it will secure the U.S.-Mexican border before it allows immigrants illegally in the United States to take their first steps toward legal status.
“The triggers in the bill that kick off legalization are weak,” said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, referring to a series of requirements that must be met before unauthorized immigrants can apply for legal status. “No one can dispute that this bill is legalization first, enforcement later.”
He said the last extensive overhaul of immigration in 1986 had also claimed it would end illegal immigration. “We thought we were so certain … and we screwed up,” he said of those who voted for the bill 37 years ago, himself among them.
The first challenge came on Grassley’s proposal to require six months to elapse between the time the southern border is secured and immigrants may begin seeking legal status, a step Schumer said would “delay, probably forever, any legalization” for immigrants now living in the country without authorization.
The second was advanced by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and sought to require that both houses of Congress vote to declare the border secure before the citizenship process could begin. Under the legislation as drafted, the secretary of Homeland Security has the authority to make that declaration.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, later tried to require that the number of U.S. border patrol agents be tripled on the U.S.-Mexico border and the amount of equipment stationed there be quadrupled before any immigrant could apply for a change in legal status.
Hatch, who had supported the two earlier GOP proposals, opposed the Cruz plan.
