The immigration bill made it through the Senate, but only after a whole host of ugly amendments were worked in. Jonathan Weisman reports:
The bill took a decidedly conservative turn last night with the adoption of amendments that would at once declare English the national language and designate English the "common language" of the United States. The Senate also blocked the bill's newly legalized illegal immigrants from receiving the earned-income tax credit, while denying legalized undocumented workers any Social Security benefits they may have earned after overstaying their visa.
Senators also undid a provision that would keep information from visa applications confidential....
Their defeat left immigration rights activists convinced that the Senate will pass the bill largely intact -- without the improvements they wanted but with changes sought by conservatives.
I haven't seen the amendment yet, but I have to imagine that, under its terms, immigrants are only forbidden from collecting an EITC for the first year of their citizenship, and not, say, indefinitly. Otherwise it would be truly one of the most reprehensible legal provisions ever written. Even still, if there had ever been a reason to support the bill--before that provision, or the common-language hat tip to the xenophobic right, or the denial of confidentiality--surely there isn't any longer. Now we wait and see what the House says.
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