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(AP)  The Senate drove a stake Thursday through
President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants,
likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008
elections.
  

    The bill's supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to
limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the
legislation, which critics assailed as offering amnesty to illegal
immigrants. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, DFL-Minn., voted for the measure. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., voted against it.


      Senators in both parties said the issue is so volatile that
Congress is highly unlikely to revisit it this fall or next year,
when the presidential election will increasingly dominate American
politics.

      A similar effort collapsed in the Congress last year, and the
House has not bothered with an immigration bill this year, awaiting
Senate action.

      The vote was a stinging setback for Bush, who advocated the bill
as an imperfect but necessary fix of current immigration practices
in which many illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed
visas to live and work in the United States.

      It was a victory for Republican conservatives who strongly
criticized the bill's provisions that would have established
pathways to lawful status for many of the estimated 12 million
illegal immigrants. They were aided by talk radio and TV hosts who
repeatedly attacked the bill and urged listeners to flood Congress
with calls, faxes and e-mails.

      Voting to allow the bill to proceed by ending debate were 33
Democrats, 12 Republicans and independent Joe Lieberman, Conn.
Voting to block the bill by not limiting debate were 37
Republicans, 15 Democrats and independent Bernard Sanders, Vt. Tim
Johnson, D-S.C., did not vote.

      The bill would have toughened border security and instituted a
new system for weeding out illegal immigrants from workplaces. It
would have created a new guest worker program and allowed millions
of illegal immigrants to obtain legal status if they briefly
returned home.

      Bush, making a last-ditch bid to salvage the bill, called
senators early Thursday morning to urge their support. Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos
Gutierrez approached senators as they entered and left the chamber
shortly before the vote.

      "We have been in contact with members of Congress over the past
couple of days and the president has made it clear that this is
important to him," White House spokesman Tony Snow said before the
vote.

      But conservatives from Bush's own party led the opposition. They
repeatedly said the government must secure the borders before
allowing millions of illegal aliens a path to legal status.

      "Americans feel that they are losing their country ... to a
government that has seemed to not have the competence or the
ability to carry out the things that it says it will do," said
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.

      Sen. Elizabeth H. Dole, R-N.C., said many Americans "don't have
confidence" that borders, especially with Mexico, will be
significantly tightened. "It's not just promises but proof that
the American people want," Dole said.

      But the bill's backers said border security and accommodations
to illegal immigrants must go hand in hand.

      "Year after year, we've had the broken borders," said Sen.
Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. "Year after year, we've seen the
exploitation of workers."

      After the vote, he said: "It is now clear that we are not going
to complete our work on immigration reform. That is enormously
disappointing for Congress and for the country."

      Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told colleagues that if the
bill faltered, the political climate almost surely would not allow
a serious reconsideration until 2009 or later. It would be highly
unlikely, she said, "in the next few years to fix the existing
system ... . We are so close."

      From the beginning, the bill's most forceful opponents were
southern Republicans. GOP Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana, Jim
DeMint of South Carolina and Jeff Sessions of Alabama led the
charge, often backed by Texan John Cornyn.

      Two southern Republicans - Lindsey Graham, S.C., and Mel
Martinez, Fla., who was born in Cuba - supported it.

      Also crucial to the bill's demise was opposition from three
Democrats recently elected from GOP-leaning states. They were Jon
Tester of Montana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jim Webb of
Virginia.

      Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., called the vote "a victory for
fear-mongering and obstruction over a bipartisan commitment to fix
our broken immigration system."


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The Senate drove a stake Thursday through
President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants,
likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008
elections.


Supporters fall 14 votes short of keeping immigration bill alive in Senate

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