Friday, May 26, 2006

Frist and Alexander votes diverge on Senate immigration bill

Tennessee's senators cast almost identical votes on the various amendments to the Senate's immigration bill, until they cast opposing votes at the end:
The House bill has been the one described as "enforcement only", but even the Senate bill leaves plenty of dead-ends for illegal immigrants to get stuck in, without any hope of future legalization. Many people will be unable or unwilling to satisfy the more burdensome requirements for legalization (like having to leave the country and apply for re-entry), and the Senate bill as passed does nothing to change the fate of expatriates who are illegalized after April 5, 2006. This guarantees that some of the current generation of "illegals" will remain illegal, and new arrivals will be subjected to the same regime we have now, even if the House were to cave and accept the Senate bill intact. One wonders how the Senate bill could be called "comprehensive" if there will still be millions of illegalized immigrants after its passage?

Read the text of the Senate bill here.

Alexander
Senator Lamar Alexander
Frist
Senator Bill Frist


In 2005, every Tennessee congressman except Jim Cooper voted for the House bill.

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