http://www.miamiherald.com/509/story/154256.html

Immigrants and their supporters reacted with anger and disappointment Thursday to a vote that derailed legislation in the U.S. Senate aimed at legalizing millions of undocumented migrants.

''This is the worst news I've received all day,'' said Ignacio Caravantes, a landscaper who lives in Florida City with his wife Araceli and four of their seven children -- all undocumented migrants from Michoacán, a state in central Mexico. ``We were hoping that at least they would have voted to continue debate. That at least would have given us some hope for the future. Now, who knows what's going to happen?''

But Caravantes said he was sure he would not leave the United States.

''We really have no place else to go,'' he said in a telephone interview as he worked in South Miami-Dade Thursday morning. ``We have made our lives here. My children have grown up here, and they don't know Mexico at all now. We are going to stay no matter what.''

Caravantes, 50, sneaked into the United States in 1998 and then gradually brought his wife and children over to Florida City, where he settled. Mexicans make up the bulk of the 12 million estimated undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Jean, a 49-year-old Haitian-born car mechanic in Miami, said, ''There's no more hope for the immigrant people in the United States.'' Jean, who asked that his last name not be printed for fear that immigration authorities would track him, also said that the ''big loser'' is the U.S. economy because the undocumented immigrants who expected legalization now will have no papers and will not be able to buy homes and cars or get better-paying jobs.

''The ray of hope that had arisen when they refiled the legislation has been extinguished,'' said Verónica Ruiz, an undocumented Colombian who has been in hiding since Feb. 6, when immigration officers went to her home in Miami to detain her because she had been ordered deported.

The 31-year-old Colombian joined the ranks of more than half a million fugitives fleeing deportation orders nationwide after she refused to open the door when the officers came to pick her up. Eventually, the agents left and she went underground. Her attorney has since filed papers in court to reopen her case.

''Now it's going to be really difficult to get legalization back on track,'' she said. ``It was the hope of many immigrants, and now that hope is gone. It doesn't help anyone.''

Ruiz said that though she was disappointed in the vote because it may preclude a revival of the issue anytime soon, she was not personally upset about the demise of the Senate bill.

''It had too many restrictions and conditions and fees and fines that in the end would have made it really difficult for many of the 12 million people to legalize their situation,'' she said. ``It would have helped some, but not all.''

Ofelia Aguilar, a Mexican migrant farm worker in Homestead who crossed the border illegally in 1990 when she was 17, was angry.

''It's a real shame what happened in the Senate,'' she said. ``The only true natives here are the American Indians. Everybody else is an immigrant. We are all immigrants and for them to have done what they did reflects the hardening of anti-immigrant attitudes in this country.

``We work from sunrise to sunset. We work hard. We are not stealing. So it is unfair for Congress to treat us like they did. I guess for now we will have to continue living in the shadows, hoping our children will grow up to have a free and prosperous life.''

Aguilar's four children, two boys and two girls, were born in the United States. The oldest is 14 and the youngest two. Her husband, Maximiliano, also an undocumented Mexican immigrant, is a construction worker.

MartÃ*n Avendaño, a migrant worker from Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca, said the Senate action showed U.S. politicians do not take undocumented workers seriously.

''They are playing with our sentiments,'' said Avendaño, 40, who now works in landscaping after years of picking tomatoes and beans in crop fields of Florida City and Homestead. ``First, they raise our hopes with the debate on immigration reform and then they take it away from us, just like that, as if we didn't matter.''

A prominent Haitian-American community activist who testified on behalf of immigration reform in Congress last month expressed disbelief.

''It's unbelievable,'' said Marleine Bastien, executive director of Haitian Women of Miami, Inc., and chair of the Florida Immigrant Coalition. ``I had high hopes that something positive would come out of these discussions to benefit our hard-working immigrant families, but I was obviously wrong.''

She went on to blame politics for the bill's failure.

``Our leaders in the Senate preferred to play politics rather than do what is right for such a deserving group.''

Bastien testified May 22 before the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration.

José Lagos, head of the immigrant rights group Honduran Unity, said his office was flooded with calls from immigrants who are ``very upset.''

He said he was telling undocumented migrants not to despair because the Senate vote was not ``the end of the road.''

He said circumstances may change in the future because citizens upset with what happened Thursday in the Senate may vote against senators who blocked the bill and elect lawmakers more sympathetic to immigration reform.

Randolph McGrorty, executive director of the Archdiocese of Miami's Catholic Charities Legal Services, credited anti-illegal immigration forces with the defeat of the legalization bill.

''While the proposed legislation had many flaws, its defeat was not based on careful deliberation of the legislative merits or failings,'' said McGrorty. ``It certainly was not based on concerns for fairness, national security and economic necessity. It was defeated because the voices of bigotry were louder than the voices calling for common sense.''

Cheryl Little, executive director of Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, one of the largest immigrant rights groups in South Florida, also voiced disappointment -- but not surprise.

''Given the enormous level of anti-immigrant rhetoric of late, it's not surprising that the bill has died,'' Little said. ``But without comprehensive immigration reform, we will continue to fail to meet both our security and economic needs.''

She added: ``Department of Homeland Security officials have frequently made clear that comprehensive immigration reform can be a valuable tool in the war against terrorism, yet Congress has failed to step up to the plate and make the bold decisions to achieve this.''

Not all immigrant rights advocates were sorry to see the Senate bill die.

''As painful as it is to say this, it has to be said: This was a bad bill,'' said Jonathan Fried, executive director of the Homestead social justice organization WeCount!

``Many, possibly a majority, of the millions of noncriminal undocumented immigrants would not have made it through the complicated and expensive legalization process contained in the bill.''

Fried went on to cite a litany of what he said were flaws in the bill.

``It would have drastically reduced family immigration. It had a temporary worker program without the minimum requirements for protection of U.S. and foreign workers. It would have further militarized the border, while reducing civil rights protections and due process rights.''

However, local construction industry representative Peter Dyga, who has worked to lobby for this legislation, said his group was ``very disappointed.''

''The irony is, for all the people supposedly who are upset and calling, what they got is the status quo and silent amnesty,'' said Dyga, vice president of governmental affairs for the South Florida chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors. ``We were supportive as long as it did two things: secure our border and give employers in this country a reliable and predictable source of employees.''

Now, Dyga said, ``We'll continue to be under a system where we have to guess which documents are real or not.''