6/12/2007

There was a completely unexpected event developed on the floor of the Senate, practically killing the CIR (Comprehensive Immigration Reform) bill. The Senate floor was flooded with the amendments after amendments, particularly by the restrictionist legislators. Their strategy appeared to be to filibuster the CIR via the endless debates and amendments after amendments with the resultant delays.

The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid and Ted Kennedy, attempted to place a cap on this and pushed forward a motion to invoke cloture to close the debates, amendments, and vote the final bill, but the motion failed not once but twice. The motion was put to the vote in the morning, which was rejected. The motion was put to the vote again late in the evening but rejected again on the floor.

The Senate Majority Leader pulled off the CIR from the floor. It means that the Senate will no longer deal with the CIR unless the two parties bring it back through a successful negotiation. The prediction indicates that the party leaders will continue to negotiate but even if the negotiation is successful, the CIR will not come back to the Senate not for days but for weeks or months.

The CIR 2007 is practically dead! Firstly, people know well by now that because of the 2008 election politics, unless the bill is passed before the Summer recess (August) of the Congress, the CIR has been predicted "unrealistic."

There is another reason why this bill is practically dead. The House took a position that it will take up the CIR only when the Senate passes the bill and if the Senate fails to pass the bill, the House leaders did not intend to pick up the CIR on its own. Conclusion of the Senate CIR action was important from this perspective. It is practically gone, at least "for now."

The negotiators of the compromise bill de facto have torn apart the nation and the immigrant community with the hybrid and mastic picture which was ugly and which everyone hated, no matter whether pro-immigrationists or anti-immigrationists.