Senate Kills Key Amendment in Immigration Bill UPDATED

It just keeps getting worse.

Today the Senate voted 53 to 45 to kill an amendment that would require all illegal aliens to return to their country of origin for a specific period of time before they could apply for permanent status in the U.S. The amendment was proposed by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R) of Texas.

The bill could grant lawful status to as many as 12 million illegal immigrants as long as they passed background checks and paid fines and fees. Heads of household seeking permanent legal residency would have to return home to apply for green cards, however.

Without her amendment, Hutchison said shortly before the vote, "the amnesty tag that has been put on this bill will remain. It is the key issue in the bill for the American people."

Republicans and Democrats were both seeking to add restrictions to the legalization program, from barring unlawful immigrants from getting green cards, to permitting only those in the U.S. four years or more to be legalized. Source.

So lawbreakers illegal aliens don't even have to go home before being granted resident status. All they have to do is pass a background check, (which is pointless, really, since they don't want to deport criminals or visa overstays, either) and they become citizens.

Who do they think will do these backgrounds, anyway? The government? The same government that has refused to enforce our immigration laws all along? The same government that is so backlogged it takes a citizen of this country six months to get a passport? The same government that still refuses to close our borders and protect those of us who live here legally?

Spare me.

If POTUS and Congress were serious about stopping illegal immigration they would close the border immediately and start enforcing the laws we already have in place. Build the fence, beef up Border Patrol, stop entitlements, prosecute employers who hire illegals and deport all criminal aliens.

But they haven't done that, nor will they.

This isn't about the safety and security of our nation and our people. This is about politicians trying to push through their own personal agendas to further line their pockets and fuel their egos. And a president who is trying to distract us from his failures in Iraq.

And they couldn't care less what we think.

**UPDATED**: Hot Air thinks we might have the votes to kill it tomorrow. Let's end it before it goes any further. That means you, Webb and Domenici. Plus, some Senators neither know, nor care, what the whole thing is about. Lord help us.