Thread: Dream Act TEST VOTE!!!!

October 25, 2007
Bill for Immigrant Students Fails Test Vote in Senate
By JULIA PRESTON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — A bill to grant legal status to illegal immigrants who are high school graduates was defeated Wednesday in a test vote in the Senate, significantly dimming the prospects for any major immigration legislation this year.

By a vote of 52 to 44, the bill failed to garner the 60 votes needed to proceed to a debate on the Senate floor. The bill, sponsored by Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, would have given provisional legal status to illegal immigrant students who completed high school if they either attended college or served in the military for two years.

Lawmakers said Mr. Durbin’s bill was a litmus test for the immigration issue because it was the most politically palatable piece of the broad immigration legislation backed by President Bush that failed last summer in the Senate.

Mr. Durbin’s measure, called the Dream Act by its supporters, was tailored to benefit young, successful students whose immigration status was the result of decisions by their parents to come to the United States illegally, in many cases when the children were small.

Republican sponsors of the bill included Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana.

The vote showed that Republican opposition remained resolute to any effort to give legal status to illegal immigrants. It also eroded the support of some Democrats for other immigration measures under discussion. Those include a bill known as AgJobs that would give legal status to illegal immigrant farmworkers and overhaul a guest worker program for agriculture. Employers are also asking Congress to expand and streamline visa programs to bring in highly skilled legal immigrant workers.

[b]“They’ll all be hard, every one of them,â€

We'll have to see about AgJOBS. Reid has already said he may or will attach it to the Farm Bill.

__________


Call the Senate: NO AgJOBS Amnesty !