Senate panel passes immigration bill

MIAMI - May 29, 2013 - PRLog -- Senate panel passes immigration bill

A Senate panel on Tuesday May 21, 2013 approved legislation to give millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, setting up a spirited debate next month in the full Senate over the biggest changes in immigration policy in a generation.

The amended bill that heads to the Senate floor would make significant progress to secure our borders, make E-Verify mandatory for the first time in American history, effectively crack down on immigrants who overstay visas, and modernize the legal immigration system to meet America’s 21st century economic needs for both highly skilled talent and guest workers to fill labor shortages.

President Barack Obama, who has made performance of an immigration bill one of his top priorities for this year, praised the Senate Judiciary Committee's action, saying the bill was consistent with the goals he has expressed.

"I encourage the full Senate to bring this bipartisan bill to the floor at the earliest possible opportunity and remain hopeful that the amendment process will lead to further improvements," Obama said in a statement released by the White House.

By a vote of 13-5, the Senate panel approved the bill that would put 11 million illegal residents on a 13-year path to citizenship while further strengthening security along the southwestern border with Mexico, long a sieve for illegal crossings into the United States.

The vote followed the committee's decision to embrace a Republican move to ease restrictions on high-tech U.S. companies that want to hire more skilled workers from countries like India and China (http://www.reuters.com/places/china).

All of the core elements of the legislation have been maintained after five long work sessions by the committee. Furthermore, some border security provisions critical to conservatives and border-state members of Congress have been strengthened.

Frank Sharry, executive director of the pro-immigration reform group America's Voice, said the bill was now "battle-tested" and was emerging with more Republican support than when the Senate panel began work on it this month.

"It's remarkable. You have a dysfunctional Congress, where both parties have been at war with each other, working together on a bipartisan basis on a controversial issue and making tremendous progress," Sharry.

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