Senate Deal on Immigration Falters

NYT Senate leaders reached agreement Thursday on a broad, bipartisan compromise that would put the vast majority of the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship, but its prospects for passage grew more uncertain as Republicans and Democrats clashed late into the night over parliamentary procedure. Both sides said that without a quick resolution of the differences they would not have a vote on the final legislation before Congress leaves for its spring recess on Friday, raising the possibility that the painstakingly negotiated compromise might unravel as it is exposed to intense political scrutiny during the two-week Congressional break.

This is wonderful news. Hopefully the plan will fail altogether, and we won't run the risk of a House/Senate conference committee. The borders must be sealed before any discussion of citizenship. I propose a secure ID card with photo, fingerprint, and other biometric data, available at cost to those outside our borders, and with cost + $2000 to people in the US, repeal Posse Comitatas within 10 miles of the border and station the military there on training missions to learn how to seal the border (skills that would be very valuable in Iraq and Afganistan), and funds appropriated to build a fence (but that could be used on hitech virtual fence tools if the military decided they were more effective

Betsy Newmark blogged The solution that the Senate came up with yesterday on immigration is so delusional. The idea that there can be some sort of documentation that will be fraud-proof to show if people have been here for more than five years is a joke. The Congress shouldn't pass a law that will clearly be broken. And this bill does nothing to address the problem of the new illegal immigrants who will come in every day.