Immigration Bill Fails in Senate

The Immigration bill that has been the work of Democrats and President Bush has failed a key Senate vote. The majority of the Republicans in the Senate voted against proceeding with this bill. This was basically a test vote for the Senate Democrats to see if they had the votes to pass the bill as it is currently written and amended.

This has been a bitter fight between the Democrats and the Republicans for a while now. The bill would give Bush his guest worker program and would have gone a long way towards granting illegal immigrants at least a chance at citizenship. Both of these subjects are mistakes in the minds of many Americans.

According to recent polls, a clear majority of Americans opposed this legislation. It did not offer enough protections for American workers that would be affected by the guest worker program and did not include harsh enough penalties for illegal immigrants. Hopefully this failed vote will help Congress realize that there is still much work to be done before they can hope to pass any immigration legislation.

The point has also been made that there are many laws already that would enable our government to crack down on illegal immigration, but funding has not been provided or is limited at best. Ultimately this will come down to politicians deciding to do what is best for our country or trying to please everyone, including illegal immigrants. Some might think that this would be a no brainer.