Immigration Measure Blocked

The Senate on Tuesday blocked a measure that would have created a path to citizenship for an estimated 500,000 farmworkers and their families, dealing a setback to those who advocate legalization as the key to immigration reform.

The measure’s supporters fell seven votes short of the 60 needed to prevent a filibuster by opponents, ending the effort by Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) to attach the plan to an emergency spending bill.

The proposal’s supporters put the best face on their defeat. They said they were encouraged that Craig had forced the Senate to hold its first substantive debate on immigration reform in a decade, and they were heartened that 53 members in the 100-seat Senate supported ending the filibuster.

“We feel really good about this,” said Marc Grossman, spokesman for the United Farm Workers union. “There isn’t another immigration reform measure that has gotten that far” in recent years.

Legalization advocates said they hoped the debate over the measure, dubbed AgJobs, would persuade the White House that immigration reform enjoyed greater bipartisan support than did President Bush’s plan for overhauling Social Security.

“It is clear that senators are really trying to work this out,” said one senior Republican Senate aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And it’s not your usual suspects -- it goes from the far right to the far left.”

Advocates for immigration restriction said they were delighted that Craig’s measure had been blocked but expressed concern that so many senators had voted to end the filibuster of it.

“There clearly is a lack of understanding in the Senate ... about what this bill is,” said Rosemary Jenks, an official with NumbersUSA, a nonprofit organization that favors a crackdown on illegal immigration.

Tuesday’s vote “makes it very clear that groups like mine have more work ahead” in lobbying senators to oppose legalization proposals, she said.

Bush has urged Congress to pass a guest-worker program that would legalize the status of some of the estimated 8 million to 10 million illegal workers in this country. Unlike Craig’s measure, Bush’s program would not lead to citizenship for the workers.

But Bush’s plan has run into opposition from some fellow Republicans -- particularly in the House, where a strong lobby in favor of immigration restrictions has said the president’s proposal amounts to a form of amnesty for lawbreakers.

Craig’s measure, the product of years of negotiations between farmworker unions and agricultural interests, would have faced an uphill struggle in the House.

Some of its backers are, like Craig, conservative Republicans who viewed the plan as a way of ensuring a stable supply of workers for the agriculture industry. Others, like co-sponsor Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), saw it as a way of bolstering workers’ negotiating strength with employers.

AgJobs offered temporary residency to illegal farmworkers who could demonstrate that they had worked in agriculture for at least 100 days in the 18 months before Dec. 31, 2004, and met certain other criteria.

Workers granted temporary residency would have to work an additional 360 days in agriculture over the next three to six years to be eligible for permanent residency, which then could lead to citizenship. The farmworkers’ spouses and children would also be eligible for permanent residency.

Opponents attacked the measure as a thinly disguised amnesty program that would reward lawbreakers. They also said it was inappropriate to try to add such a sweeping change in immigration policy to the $80-billion-plus emergency spending bill, which is designed largely to supply troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Craig said that after years of seeking a vote on the measure, he was unwilling to wait any longer.

“A majority of my colleagues sent a strong message today that they support AgJobs and are ready to address immigration reform,” he said after the vote.

Noting that Bush continues “to stress the importance of addressing comprehensive immigration reform this year,” Craig said he would continue working with Kennedy to again bring his measure before the Senate “sooner rather than later.”

Fifteen Republicans joined 37 Democrats and James M.Jeffords (I-Vt.) in voting to limit debate. Five Democrats joined 40 Republicans in voting against limiting debate.

California’s two Democratic senators split on the issue. Sen. Barbara Boxer, a co-sponsor of the AgJobs legislation, voted to limit the debate. Sen. Dianne Feinstein voted to maintain the filibuster. This week Feinstein had said she opposed Craig’s measure because she believed it would encourage more illegal immigration.

The Senate also voted overwhelmingly -- 77 to 21 -- on Tuesday to maintain a filibuster that blocked an alternative legalization proposal offered by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Chambliss’ plan would have temporarily legalized the status of some farmworkers but offered no path to citizenship.

Both Feinstein and Boxer voted in support of the filibuster.