PJ Media:
After months of wrangling, the Senate passed wide-ranging and bipartisan legislation on Thursday aimed at reforming the nation’s troubled immigration system, but the measure’s fate appears murky as the debate shifts to the more skeptical House.
The legislation, known as the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013, passed in a 68-32 vote with Vice President Joe Biden presiding. Fourteen of the chamber’s 45 Republicans joined all majority Democrats in supporting the bill, which drew a series of emotional floor speeches.
GOP votes came from Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), John McCain (Ariz.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Susan Collins (Maine), John Hoeven (N.D.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Jeff Chiesa (N.J.), Dean Heller (Nev.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Bob Corker (Tenn.), and Orrin Hatch (Utah).
“No one should dispute that, like every sovereign nation, we have a right to control who comes in,” said Rubio, a member of the so-called Gang of Eight that formulated the proposal. “But unlike other countries, we are not afraid of people coming in from other places. Instead, inspired by our Judeo-Christian principles we Americans have seen the stranger, and invited them in.”
Rubio, the scion of Cuban immigrants viewed as a possible contender for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, recounted his own parents’ journey to the nation’s shores, maintaining that immigrants come “in search of liberty and freedom, for sure. But often simply looking for jobs to feed their kids and the chance of a better life.”
“Even with all our challenges, we remain the shining city on the hill,” Rubio said. “We are still the hope of the world. Go to our factories and fields. Go to our kitchens and construction sites. Go to the cafeteria of this very Capitol. There, you will find that the miracle of America still lives. For here, in America, those who once had no hope will give their children the life they once wanted for themselves. Here, in America, generations of unfulfilled dreams will finally come to pass.”
Rubio said he supports the reform effort “not just because I believe in immigrants, but because I believe in America even more.”
But the effort drew plenty of opposition from Rubio’s Republican brethren, particularly because of perceived shortcomings in the provisions dealing with border security. GOP lawmakers, like Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), argued that the nation needs to fix its leaky southern border before addressing issues like work visas and providing the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already within U.S. borders with a path to citizenship.
Sessions characterized the reform bill as “fatally flawed” and accused the Gang of Eight of kowtowing to special interests like organized labor and big business in its formulation.
“The legislation adopted today guarantees three things — immediate amnesty before security, permanent future illegal immigration and a record surge in legal immigration that will reduce wages and increase unemployment,” Sessions said. “There will be no border fence, no border surge, nothing but the same tired illusory promises of future enforcement that will never occur.”
The Senate so-called immigration bill is one huge political pile of crap. Every Republican who voted for this dog should be singled out as a traitor, especially McCain!! Hopefully this will be DOA in the House.
The Senate Bill violates the Constitutional requirement that all bills involving taxation must begin in the house. Congressman Steve Stockman sent a letter to Boehner requesting he immediately kill the Senate’s bill, S. 774 through a constitutionally-required “blue slip” resolution.
Conservatives need to “Primary” the 14 Republican Senators who voted for this bill. Americans also need to make it firmly clear to our House representatives that Americans have overwhelmingly demanded that the border be secured with real enforcement before any consideration of immigration reform, that we will remember their choices. Passing immigration reform will not gain them Hispanic votes, and it will cost them our votes in their next election seasons.