Quick Update: Immigration and Budget on the Hill

by Donna Jablonski, May 18, 2006

As the U.S. Senate considered immigration reform yesterday, senators rejected an amendment by conservatives to eliminate a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants but voted to have hundreds of miles of fencing constructed along the U.S.-Mexico border. If passed, the Senate bill will have to be reconciled with the House version of immigration reform, which includes heavy immigration enforcement but offers no path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants who have been living and working in the United States for years.

Meanwhile, hours after President George W. Bush signed a $70 billion tax cut bill that will make the rich even richer while largely ignoring the rest of us, the U.S. House approved a $2.7 trillion budget blueprint that shortchanges working families. The 1 a.m. vote followed plenty of wrangling. Republican moderates, according to The New York Times, demanded a $3 billion increase in funding for education, worker programs, health and community-development block grants, but in the end got only a statement that “recognized” these programs need a boost. All House Democrats and 12 Republicans opposed the budget blueprint, which passed in a narrow 218–210 vote. Now it heads for a House-Senate conference committee.

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