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Immigration Reform Update & Final Vote Alert

The final vote on the Senate comprehensive immigration reform bill, S. 744, may be as early as tomorrow morning. Now is the time to call your Senators and tell them to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Please call TODAY. You can call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Senators or find Senators’ direct lines at www.senate.gov.

The message is simple:
Please vote to support S. 774. Farmworkers urgently need immigration reform. The bipartisan negotiated compromise between farmworkers and agricultural employers is included in S. 744 and we ask you to vote YES on S. 744.

Update:

On Monday, the Senate passed an important procedural vote on Leahy amendment 1183, a substitute bill to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, S. 744. The vote was 67 to 27 in favor of ending debate and voting on a substitute version of the bill, and is viewed as an indicator of the S.744’s overall support. All of the Democrats present and 14 Republicans voted in favor of the measure, plus an additional two Democrats who support the bill were still traveling and unable to vote. You can see the list of yeas and neas here.

The substitute bill includes the most recent version of S. 744 and provisions negotiated by the gang of eight and a group of Republican Senators led by Senators Corker (R-TN) and Hoeven (R-ND), aimed at gaining more Republican votes. Many of the added provisions have been sharply criticized, including significant increases to the border security provisions of the bill and language limiting access to social security contributions and earnings made from 2004 to 2014 by individuals legalizing under the broad legalization program and nonimmigrants who have overstayed their visas. However, S. 744 needs 60 votes to defeat a filibuster in order to pass the Senate, and before the agreement on the Corker-Hoeven amendment it was unclear whether sufficient Republicans would vote for the bill without the additional provisions.

The Senate will vote on Leahy amendment 1183 this morning and is expected to vote on final passage of the bill as early as tomorrow morning. With a few exceptions, most of the Senators voting in favor of ending debate on Monday have committed their support to S.744’s final passage (at least the version in Leahy 1183). There is an effort in the Senate to try to put together a package of Democratic and Republican amendments, which may be put up for a vote today, but it would require the unanimous consent of all Senators, making it very complex. At this point, it is not clear which amendments will be included, but Senator Chambliss has filed multiple harmful amendments to the agricultural compromise in S. 744. We will continue tracking developments on the amendments and will keep you updated. You can watch the debate on the Senate website.

The House

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to mark-up the “Legal Workforce Act,” H.R. 1772 today at 11:00am and the “Supplying Knowledge-based Immigrants and Lifting Levels of STEM Visas Act” (The SKILLS Visa Act), H.R. 2131, on Thursday at 10:00am. The Legal Workforce Act is an E-verify bill and the SKILLS Visa Act is a high-skilled worker visa program. Neither of these bills contain a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants and both represent the Committee’s commitment to a piecemeal approach to reform that fails to address the broken immigration system and the broad support for a roadmap to citizenship.

The final vote on the Senate comprehensive immigration reform bill, S. 744, may be as early as tomorrow morning. Now is the time to call your Senators and tell them to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Please call TODAY. You can call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask for your Senators or find Senators’ direct lines at www.senate.gov.

The message is simple:
Please vote to support S. 774. Farmworkers urgently need immigration reform. The bipartisan negotiated compromise between farmworkers and agricultural employers is included in S. 744 and we ask you to vote YES on S. 744.

Update:

On Monday, the Senate passed an important procedural vote on Leahy amendment 1183, a substitute bill to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act, S. 744. The vote was 67 to 27 in favor of ending debate and voting on a substitute version of the bill, and is viewed as an indicator of the S.744’s overall support. All of the Democrats present and 14 Republicans voted in favor of the measure, plus an additional two Democrats who support the bill were still traveling and unable to vote. You can see the list of yeas and neas here.

The substitute bill includes the most recent version of S. 744 and provisions negotiated by the gang of eight and a group of Republican Senators led by Senators Corker (R-TN) and Hoeven (R-ND), aimed at gaining more Republican votes. Many of the added provisions have been sharply criticized, including significant increases to the border security provisions of the bill and language limiting access to social security contributions and earnings made from 2004 to 2014 by individuals legalizing under the broad legalization program and nonimmigrants who have overstayed their visas. However, S. 744 needs 60 votes to defeat a filibuster in order to pass the Senate, and before the agreement on the Corker-Hoeven amendment it was unclear whether sufficient Republicans would vote for the bill without the additional provisions.

The Senate will vote on Leahy amendment 1183 this morning and is expected to vote on final passage of the bill as early as tomorrow morning. With a few exceptions, most of the Senators voting in favor of ending debate on Monday have committed their support to S.744’s final passage (at least the version in Leahy 1183). There is an effort in the Senate to try to put together a package of Democratic and Republican amendments, which may be put up for a vote today, but it would require the unanimous consent of all Senators, making it very complex. At this point, it is not clear which amendments will be included, but Senator Chambliss has filed multiple harmful amendments to the agricultural compromise in S. 744. We will continue tracking developments on the amendments and will keep you updated. You can watch the debate on the Senate website.

The House

The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to mark-up the “Legal Workforce Act,” H.R. 1772 today at 11:00am and the “Supplying Knowledge-based Immigrants and Lifting Levels of STEM Visas Act” (The SKILLS Visa Act), H.R. 2131, on Thursday at 10:00am. The Legal Workforce Act is an E-verify bill and the SKILLS Visa Act is a high-skilled worker visa program. Neither of these bills contain a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants and both represent the Committee’s commitment to a piecemeal approach to reform that fails to address the broken immigration system and the broad support for a roadmap to citizenship.