The U.S. Senate passed sweeping legislation on Thursday offering the hope of citizenship to millions of immigrants living illegally in the shadows, while promising a military-style effort to secure the long-porous border with Mexico.
The issue sits atop President Barack Obama’s second-term agenda, but the bill’s prospects are highly uncertain in the Republican-controlled House, where many conservatives prefer more border security to any pathway to citizenship.
The bill would amount to the most dramatic changes in decades to U.S. immigration laws. Some onlookers erupted in chants of “Yes, we can” after the vote result was announced.
The developments marked an end to years of partisan gridlock on immigration. The shift started quickly after last year’s presidential election, when many Republican leaders concluded the party must show a more welcoming face to Hispanic voters who had given Mr. Obama more than 70 per cent of their support.
“Now is the time when opponents will try their hardest to pull this bipartisan effort apart so they can stop commonsense reform from becoming a reality. We cannot let that happen,” Mr. Obama said in a statement shortly after the vote.
A small bipartisan group of senators had worked out the current bill a rare show of cooperation in the bitterly divided Congress.
“Do the right thing for America and for your party,” said Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat who said his mother immigrated to the United States from Cuba. “Find common ground. Lean away from the extremes. Opt for reason and govern with us.”
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake recalled the time he spent as a youth working alongside family members and “undocumented migrant labour, largely from Mexico, who worked harder than we did under conditions much more difficult than we endured.”
Division among Republicans was evident as potential 2016 presidential contenders split. Sen. Marco Rubio was one of the bill’s drafters, while senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz were opposed to it.
The legislation’s chief provisions include numerous steps to prevent future illegal immigration and to check the legal status of job applicants already living in the United States. At the same time, it offers a 13-year path to citizenship to as many as 11 million immigrants now living in the country illegally.
The measure also requires 20,000 new Border Patrol agents, the completion of 1,226 kilometres of fencing and the deployment of an array of high-tech devices along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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