{UAH} When George Bush tried the immigration bill in 2007

WASHINGTON, June 28 — President Bush's effort to overhaul the nation's immigration policy, a cornerstone of his domestic agenda, collapsed in the Senate today, with little hope that it can be revived before Mr. Bush leaves office in January 2009.

The bill called for the biggest changes to immigration law in more than 20 years, offering legal status to millions of illegal immigrants while trying to secure the nation's borders. But the Senate, forming blocs that defied party affiliation, could never unite on the legislation's key provisions. Rejecting the president's last-minute pleas, it voted 53 to 46 to turn back a motion to end debate and move toward final passage. Supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to close debate.

Mr. Bush placed telephone calls to lawmakers throughout the morning, but members of his party abandoned him in droves, with only 12 of the 49 Senate Republicans sticking by him on the key procedural vote that determined the bill's fate. Nearly one-third of Senate Democrats voted, in effect, to block action on the bill.

The bill called for the biggest changes in immigration law in more than 20 years. The vote followed an outpouring of criticism from conservatives and others who decried it as a form of amnesty for lawbreakers. The outcome was a bitter disappointment for Mr. Bush and other supporters of a comprehensive approach, including Hispanic and church groups, and employers who had been seeking greater access to foreign workers.

Both supporters and opponents said the measure was dead for the remainder of the Bush administration, although it is conceivable that individual pieces might be revived

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*A positive mind is a courageous mind, without doubts and fears, using the experience and wisdom to give the best of him/herself.

 

 We must dare invent the future!
The only way of limiting the usurpation of power by
 individuals, the military or otherwise, is to put the people in charge  - Capt. Thomas. Sankara {RIP} '1949-1987

 *"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent

revolution inevitable"**…  *J.F Kennedy

 

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