US Senate approves sweeping immigration reform

One White House official has called the immigration bill one of the most important pieces of legislation in the last twenty years. By a margin of 68 votes to 32, the sweeping reforms managed to win over enough bipartisan support to make it through the Senate, to cheers from the gallery and shouts of “Yes we Can!”

Vice president Biden presided over the vote, as 14 Republicans crossed the floor to support it, but the celebrations by supporters were distinctly muted. The bill still needs to go through the House of Congress, where Republicans have warned it will be dead on arrival.

House speaker John Boehner insisted his Republican majority would “do their own bill”, one which was grounded in “real border security”.

The measure which was finally passed by the Senate means millions of illegal immigrants would get the chance to become US citizens – although in order to win over that bipartisan support, a series of concessions were forged during months of protracted negotiations.

Those talks were led by a group known as the Gang of Eight: four Democrat and four Republican senators who thrashed out key differences and juggled the demands of key interest groups to produce a bill that could find some common ground.

Finding a compromise

It was not the bill that President Obama had wanted, when he talked about the urgent need for immigration reform in his inaugural address. In order to appease even the most moderate conservatives, it had to include far tougher promises about security.

That means a pledge to provide some 20,000 extra security agents, along with 700 miles of fencing and high-tech devices along the US-Mexican border. Immigrants will face a longer wait for a green card, and access to federal benefits will be tighter.

Other measures promise plans to curb future illegal immigration and introduce stricter checks on the legal status of anyone applying for a job inside the United States.

Florida senator Marco Rubio, who has been widely tipped as a presidential challenger in 2016, was instrumental in winning round enough of his fellow Republicans by spending countless hours putting his case through conservative news outlets.

The White House was forced to give ground. “The bipartisan bill that passed today was a compromise”, President Obama said in a statement. “By definition, nobody got everything they wanted. Not Democrats. Not Republicans. Not me.”

But he welcomed the passage of the bill, describing it as consistent with his “key principles for commonsense reform”. Now, he declared, it was up to the House to follow suit.

Wheeling and dealing

There have been countless attempts in the past to steer through significant changes – with businesses demanding easier access to high-skilled foreign workers with as few restrictions as possible.

The last effort in 2007 failed after President Bush failed to win over a broad coalition from both sides – but this time, powerful lobby groups like labour unions were brought on board.

According to John McCain – who switched sides to oppose reform before becoming a key member of that Gang of Eight -there were some important media allies too, on the right. Rupert Murdoch, he said, was a strong supporter – along with Roger Ailes, the head of Fox News.

Now, though, the future of those millions of illegal immigrants rests with the majority in the House. Congress will go into recess on July 4th, but the important date to remember is the 10th.

That is when the Republican conference will huddle in the Capitol building to decide their approach. They are likely to present a bill of their own, one that includes much tougher measures on border security, and a stricter crackdown on undocumented migrants inside the country.

A bill needs 218 Republican votes to get through, and then a committee must reconcile any outstanding differences with the version approved by the Senate. Both houses then need to vote on the final piece of legislation – there is still a long road ahead.

The Republicans are certainly in no rush. Many fear chasing potential votes in a presidential contest which is still three years away, could alienate conservative voters whose support they need in the 2014 Congressional elections.

Compelling logic

There is an overriding lack of trust that the Obama White House will stick to its promises on securing the border. Kansas congressman Tim Huelskamp put it bluntly: “The idea of letting this administration define border security is like letting Bill Clinton define sexual relations.”

Yet the logic for both sides is compelling.

Passing some kind of comprehensive reform is crucial for the long-term survival of the Republican party. In the last presidential election, the GOP lost in part because it was spurned by minorities, inlcuding tens of millions of Hispanics.

The shift to the right which happened during the early years of Obama’s first term has presented the Republicans as a hard-line, narrowly anti-immigration party: an image that modernists like Marco Rubio, as well as realists like John McCain, are anxious to overcome.

But such is the state of the dysfunctional US Congress, where blocking tactics and filibustering have become the order of the day, that even when both parties are in agreement – when a deal is in everyone’s interests – the future of immigration reform still looks uncertain.

Felicity Spector writes about US politics for Channel 4 News