The Senate immigration bill cleared the Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan vote Tuesday night, ducking — for now — big fights on guns, gay rights and how broadly the legalization is drawn, and leaving the 867-page overhaul mostly unscathed by conservative attacks.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Monday to allow illegal immigrants who get legal status to begin collecting tax-welfare payments, as the panel spent a fourth day working through amendments to the massive immigration bill and party-line splits began to emerge.
The Senate immigration bill survived its first tests Thursday as a core group of Republicans and Democrats held together, killing efforts to require full border security requirements before legalizing illegal immigrants.
They were last airborne on July 19, 1967: the four-man Navy crew from the USS Hornet that took off in an SH-3A Sea King helicopter to rescue a downed pilot in Ha Nam Province, North Vietnam. Hit by anti-aircraft gunfire, the helicopter crashed and the men never returned. Nearly 46 years later, the pilot and his crew will be united again for a final time.
Gun owners who cheered when the Senate failed to pass numerous anti-gun bills last week should temper their enthusiasm. The liberal wing of the Democratic party, led by President Obama and funded by New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, has already started to use the votes to oust pro-Second Amendment senators in 2014.
A Mississippi man was arrested Wednesday, accused of sending letters to President Barack Obama and a senator that tested positive for the poisonous ricin and set the nation's capital on edge a day after the Boston Marathon bombings.
As senators struggle with how to vote on new gun control bills, few have the kind of pressure that Sen. Jeff Flake is facing.
The immigration reform bill that senators are writing in secret would move U.S. policy to a points-based system that would reward immigrants who are taking care of disabled parents at the same level as those who have earned master's degrees in high-tech fields, according to a draft of the legislation reviewed by The Washington Times.
