Wow. I am so pleased that they listened.

State's Senators Help Kill Bush's Immigration Plan

Journal Staff and Wire
WASHINGTON— Calling it unworkable, New Mexico's two U.S. senators joined the majority in opposing President Bush's plan to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants while fortifying the border.
The bill collapsed in the Senate on Thursday, crushing both parties' hopes of addressing the volatile issue before the 2008 elections.
The Senate vote that drove a stake through the delicate compromise was a stinging setback for Bush, who had made reshaping immigration laws a central element of his domestic agenda.
"It didn't make sense to pass something on the assumption that someone else would fix it," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who described the guest worker provisions as especially complicated and unworkable. "A lot of it was just not implementable."
He said the program would have depressed U.S. wages and would have encouraged immigrants to overstay their visas.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., also called the bill unwieldy and said it contained numerous provisions he opposed.
"This bill is neither workable or realistic," he said in a statement, adding that he was particularly disappointed that amendments to the legislation were limited. He also said he was disappointed with "limitations and restrictions" on a proposed guest worker program.
Domenici also said the "Z visa" proposal could have had an adverse effect on New Mexico's Medicaid program.
Instead, he wants the Senate to take up a separate measure to provide $4.4 million for border security.
Domenici and Bingaman voted against clearing the way for the measure's final passage. The bill's supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate on the legislation, which some critics assailed as offering amnesty to illegal immigrants. The vote was 46 in favor of limiting debate to 53 in opposition to limiting debate.
After the stinging political setback, Bush sounded resigned to defeat.
"Legal immigration is one of the top concerns of the American people, and Congress' failure to act on it is a disappointment," he 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."
Some senators in both parties said the issue is so volatile that Congress is unlikely to revisit it this fall or next year, when the presidential election will dominate politics.
"I believe that until another election occurs, or until something happens in the body politic, that what occurred today was fairly final," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., the GOP chairman.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democratic candidate for president, said in a statement that he was "deeply disappointed" that immigration reform had stalled again.
"You can't solve a problem by ignoring it," he said.
All the Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate voted to end debate and advance the bill. Among Republican candidates, only Sen. John McCain of Arizona voted to keep the measure alive. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., at first voted with McCain but switched his vote when it was clear the bid to end debate would fail.
The bill would have toughened border security and instituted a new system for weeding out illegal immigrants from workplaces. It would have created a new guest worker program and allowed millions of illegal immigrants to obtain legal status if they briefly returned home.
The bill would also have set up a temporary worker program and a system to base future legal immigration more heavily on employment criteria, rather than family ties.
Thursday's vote was a defeat for a bipartisan group of lawmakers who advocated the bill as an imperfect but necessary fix of current immigration practices, in which many illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the United States.