Anti-immigrant politics kill “reform” bill in US Senate

The so-called compromise broke down over a procedural wrangle between Democrats and Republicans over whether Republican Senators opposed to the bill would be allowed to introduce and debate a long list of amendments aimed at making it more punitive, in what essentially constituted a delaying tactic aimed at killing the legislation.

The bill accepted by the Democratic and Republican leaders represented in essence a reprise of similar legislation enacted in 1986 under the Republican administration of President Ronald Reagan. However, given the host of repressive initiatives on the border and an even less generous offer for legalizing undocumented workers already in the country, the measure was considerably more reactionary. The fact that such a piece of legislation would be accepted by the Democratic Party and then scuttled by anti-immigrant opponents is a measure of how far the US political establishment has swung to the right in the past two decades.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/apr2006/immi-a08.shtml