WASHINGTON -- In another sign the sweeping bipartisan immigration bill is nearing approval, the Senate voted 68-30 Wednesday to waive budget requirements and allow the measure to proceed for a vote later this week. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., an opponent of the bill, argued that the legislation relies on $211 billion of Social Security revenue over the next 10...
WASHINGTON -- In another sign the sweeping bipartisan immigration bill is nearing approval, the Senate voted 68-30 Wednesday to waive budget requirements and allow the measure to proceed for a vote later this week.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., an opponent of the bill, argued that the legislation relies on $211 billion of Social Security revenue over the next 10 years and that without that money the legislation would cause a $10 billion deficit. This is a clear violation of the Senate's pay-as-you-go budget rules, Vitter said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., proposed Wednesday that the budget rules be waived, a measure that required 60 votes. The Senate provided eight more than required.
Vitter is part of a group of Republican senators who say that the legislation is fatally flawed because it grants interim legal status for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants before border security enhancements are enacted.
But Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said an amendment he offered with a fellow Republican, and now incorporated into the legislation, would double the number of border agents and provide more than $3 billion for high-tech equipment, including drones, to combat illegal entry across the Mexican-U.S. border.
The Senate voted 69-29 for Corker's amendment Wednesday.
The bill is expected to clear the Senate, but action in the House is considered far less likely.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who voted to waive the budget rules Wednesday, has said she's very likely to vote for final passage. The current dysfunctional immigration system, she said, doesn't work for anyone, and the new system, with smarter enforcement, is likely to enhance border security significantly.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a member of the "Gang of 8" Republican and Democratic senators who negotiated the bill, said the legislation has met all of the security demands.
"This amendment basically now puts into place virtually everything people have been asking me to do about immigration enforcement since I began talking about this issue," Rubio said this week. "I think we've run out of things we can to do to support -- to improve the border."
But Vitter and other Republicans said there are no guarantees all the border security enhancements in the bill will be implemented -- given that temporary legal status is provided before those programs are in place. Vitter said temporary legal status should await the security enhancements.
Corker, the Tennessee Republican, said that the permanent legal status sought by illegal immigrants -- green cards, or eventual citizenship -- is more than a decade away and first requires a declaration by the Homeland Security secretary that the border is secured, as well as payment from immigrant applicants of back taxes and fees as well as mastery of English.
Some of the bill's critics contend that the legislation is a huge benefit for businesses that now will be able to hire more foreign workers through an expansion of guest worker and other legal immigration programs.
"What we know for absolute certain is that this bill guarantees three things: instantaneous amnesty, permanent lawlessness, and a massive expansion in legal immigration that will reduce wages for working Americans," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. "This legislation is a crushing blow to the working people of this country, a surrender to illegality, and a capitulation to special interests over the interests of the citizens we pledged to represent."