Senate Fails to Close Debate on Immigration Bill

The US Senate voted yesterday on ending debate on the current Immigration Bill, a measure that would require 60 “ayes” to bring the bill to the floor for a final vote where 51 would be needed to pass it. Despite the very personal backing of the president, the bill’s backers couldn’t even muster a majority let alone 3/5 of the chamber. The vote of 46 in favor to 53 against means there probably won’t be a bill on immigration under Mr. Bush at all.

For the nativist right, the bill needed to die because it would let 12 million illegal immigrants stay as legal residents after undergoing certain investigations and paying certain penalties. To them, that was still “amnesty,” although quite how punishing people for violating the law meets that definition. It also gives them a rallying cry in 2008 when most of the conservatives will have to answer the question “how did you guys lose the Iraq-Nam war?”

For what passes for the far left in America, the bill was a racist attempt to keep illegal immigrants from bringing their families into the country once they had their status legalized. Reuniting families of people who violated the law to be in the US stood as a higher priority than protecting the jobs of the lower skilled among America’s citizenry.

Backers of the bill, an odd conglomeration of business interests, ethnic pressure groups and a handful of realists who understand that an ugly compromise is the only comprehensive solution to the situation, won’t have time to try anything more this Congress. Summer recess begins soon, and the presidential primaries start right after New Years. Too much remains to be done between September and January for another attempt.

What has really been missing from this entire debate is just what American citizenship means. What are the duties of being an American? What are the privileges (as distinct from human rights to which all humans are entitled by birth) that go with it? If the only difference between being a legal alien and a citizen is the right to vote and the obligation to turn up for jury duty, maybe this debate about illegal immigrants is secondary to the real question.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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