Senate to open illegals debate

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The Senate voted yesterday to begin debate on an immigration-reform bill, turning aside objections from senators who said the legislation is being rushed and acting even as Senate offices were being flooded with calls and faxes urging the deal be blocked.

Immediately after the 69-23 vote to proceed to the bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that he will extend the debate an extra week -- a concession to Republicans, but also an indication that he is committed to producing a bill this year rather than forcing a stalemate.

"If we put rhetoric aside, we have the opportunity to pass a law that treats people fairly and strengthens our economy," he said, even as he acknowledged that he has doubts about parts of the bill, which most senators saw for the first time yesterday.

The Bush administration and a group of senators had been meeting in private for months to write the bill and announced the deal Thursday, drawing an immediate flood of calls, faxes and e-mails telling lawmakers to scuttle the agreement.

It wasn't long before those calls bore fruit.

"Already by Friday afternoon, we had some of the Republican offices calling us and saying: 'Would you tell your members we're definitely going to vote no, and will you call off the phone calls?' " said Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, which has deemed the bill an amnesty for illegal aliens and whose members already have sent 185,000 faxes to Senate offices.

Groups on both sides of the issue are unhappy with the bill. Some are demanding that the legislation be killed, while others are urging lawmakers to try to fix it on the Senate floor.

One of the first amendments, from Sen. Jeff Bingaman, New Mexico Democrat, will cut the proposed guest-worker program in half from 400,000 new workers, Mr. Reid said.

That vote, which could take place today, will be the first test of the fragile coalition backing the bill.