http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=79958

WASHINGTON - A landmark attempt to reform US immigration laws and grant a path to citizenship for around 12 million illegal immigrants faces its most crucial test yet in a moment of high political drama Thursday.

Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid has scheduled a device known as a cloture vote on limiting time for debate on the package, in an effort to force it through the Senate this week.

Republicans, many of whom are under intense pressure from conservative supporters over the bill, have however complained that Reid's move would thwart a sheaf of amendments they wish to debate, and want more time.

Reid needs 60 votes to move the bill forward in the closely divided Senate. He has said he would shelve the legislation if the cloture vote fails.

That could be fatal for the bill, as any attempt to bring it back to the Senate floor later this year or early next year would mean it would land square in the political maelstrom of congressional and presidential elections in 2008.

The bill, agreed last month with the White House, is intended to bring undocumented workers out of the shadows, establish a merit-based points system for future immigrants and forge a low-wage temporary worker program.

It includes a border security crackdown, punishments for employers who hire illegal immigrants and an attempt to wipe out a backlog of visa applications from those who have gone through legal immigration channels.

If it passes, the measure would form a key plank of President George W. Bush's legacy. But the measure has attracted fierce opposition and been branded an amnesty for illegal immigrants by conservative groups.

Earlier, the Senate voted 51 to 46 to knock back the measure on depriving benefits to immigrants with certain criminal convictions and irregularities in documentation, after critics said it would have disqualified too many people.

Supporters of the bill said the amendment, framed by Texas Senator John Cornyn, would have fractured the fragile cross-party coalition trying to push the landmark bill through the Senate.

The measure would have barred any immigrant who had violated a deportation order or used false documents, among other offenses.

Moments before the vote, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer had lambasted the measure as "a stealth, trojan horse amendment," and pleaded with senators for the controversial legislation to oppose it.

One substitute amendment did pass. Put forward by one of the immigration bill's architects Senator Edward Kennedy, it disqualified applicants who are gang members, members of terrorist groups, smugglers or those who have repeat drink-driving convictions. But it dropped language on deportation orders.

US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, another architect of the legislation, is urging lawmakers to avoid making changes that could tear it apart.

In an interview with AFP, Gutierrez said he feared that amendments could "break" a fragile compromise that was reached between the White House and Republican and Democratic senators three weeks ago after intense negotiations.

"The biggest risk would be the introduction of amendments," Gutierrez said in the interview in Spanish.

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, who opposes much of the bill's content, said support for the measure was beginning to fade.

"I think enthusiasm is waning for the legislation," Sessions told reporters.

"If it goes through, it is going to be limping through without the kind of momentum it started out with."

If the measure passes the Senate, it will go the House of Representatives, where is it assured a rocky reception, and passage is not guaranteed.

The House and Senate versions of the bill would then have to be reconciled before it is sent to the president to be signed into law. AFP