Senate passes $600M border bill

The Senate gave its final approval to a $600 million border security bill Thursday. | AP

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz0wPNdH1SQ


The Senate briefly suspended its month-long summer recess to give final approval to a $600 million border security bill Thursday, fulfilling President Barack Obama’s request for reinforcements on the Southwest border.

“The president plans to sign the border security package as soon as possible,” White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said in a statement.
Contiue Reading
Text Size



POLITICO 44

The bill allows both parties, as they head into the final months on the election season, to point to some progress in addressing voter concerns about border security.

Senate Democrats and labor unions quickly released statements saying the measure nullifies Republican arguments that they will not work on a comprehensive reform bill until the border is secured.
“In my many meetings with folks on the other side of the aisle to try to gain their support for comprehensive reform, I repeatedly heard them say that once we showed we were serious about passing border security legislation, they would be able to begin working with us to fix other aspects of our broken immigration system,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Democrats’ point person on immigration reform.

“It is my hope that the bill we are passing today will break the deadlock that has existed in Congress and will clear the path for us to finally resume bipartisan negotiations in good faith,” Schumer said. “With this bill’s passage today we have clearly shown we are serious about securing our nation’s borders."

It is unclear, however, whether the bill’s passage will coax Republicans back to the negotiating table. Two key senators, John McCain of Arizona and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, said last week that the bill was a start and that more needed to be done.

“I believe tactically it will help us move forward because it pulls away their number one excuse, which is we can’t do comprehensive until there is border change,” Schumer told reporters after the Senate session. “Certainly we were getting nowhere the old way.”

The bill includes money for 1,500 new border personnel, a pair of unmanned drones and military-style bases along the border. It would mostly be paid for by hiking fees on foreign companies that use U.S. visa programs to import lower-cost labor from countries like India. Firms with more than 50 employees and more than 50 percent of their employees on H-1B work visas would be affected.

Unlike the House session Tuesday to approve a $26 billion state aid bill, only two senators were needed during Thursday's session because Democrats and Republicans agreed to pass the bill by unanimous consent. Schumer returned from New York to usher the bill, while Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) presided over the chamber.

The Senate also agreed to a resolution honoring former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who died Monday in a plane crash.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz0wPNZbhKk

yeah yeah now pass the dream act before Nov

LOL, Think too much. i don't think they will pass dream act before Nov. after Nov congress still hard to pass any immigration bill. this is bullSXXT.

I'm thinking the same thing.

I don't think Schumer has any intention of letting the dream act be voted on separately from a CIR.



I can't believe they actually dumb enough to believe that republicans would support a CIR just because they passed this bill.

http://www.micevhill.com/home_august...priations_bill

I can't believe he doesn't even plan on letting Dream be voted on as a stand alone bill, sad sad sad.

I doubt anything before Nov ;S but hmm possibly after November. we'll see

Edit: Nevermind lol

When i see this picture i get worried! if it happened to them, it can happen to me.

I actually think the border security bill will provide the political cover for republican, so they would agree to some sort of "amnesty" in the coming years ! We'll see; hopefully the landscape of immigration reform will change dramatically after the Arizona Primary Election on Aug 25th.