As Scott noted earlier, Minnesota's Senator Norm Coleman voted "yes" on cloture on the immigration bill today. A little while ago, he explained his thinking on the vote:

The cloture motion I supported today was to move ahead with the debate on the immigration bill. This is the first of many votes that we will take on this bill. I did so because the immigration crisis facing our country is too important to be ignored and I think we in the Senate have a responsibility to address it. Nevertheless, I believe work needs to be done to improve this bill.

I have an amendment to end the practice of sanctuary cities which I believe deserves an up or down vote in the Senate. I think this is critical to restoring the rule of law to immigration. 40 percent of illegal immigrants in the country today have overstayed their visas – meaning that even if we had the best border security in the world, they would still be here because they entered legally. Taking the gag off local police officers and allowing them to share information about immigration with federal authorities is a key part of closing this loophole.

Senators Graham and Kyl have a couple of other amendments that I also look forward to supporting. These would include such steps as mandatory minimum prison sentences and deportation for visa overstays, enhancing background checks for illegal immigrants, and strengthening the requirement for illegal immigrants to go to their home countries first to apply for visas.

Once the Senate has voted on the 24 pending amendments, I will reassess what is in the bill. If it is still inadequate, I will oppose the bill at that time. It is important to note that we will have an additional procedural vote after the amendments which will similarly require 60 votes. This is an important factor to remember.

I am prepared to kill this bill if it is not strong enough on enforcement. I am prepared to support it if it is.

Coleman's email was sent after Harry Reid came forward with his omnibus amendment, so I assume his optimism about improving the bill took that into account. Norm is a stand-up guy, and, agree with him or not, he will take a position and defend it cogently.

My overriding view at this time is that no immigration bill should pass any time soon. Reid's amendments, amounting to well over 300 pages, could be a complete re-write of the original bill. I haven't had time to read the amendments, and I'm not going to have time to read them. This bill should be broken up into its component parts, there should be hearings on each, and there should be an open amendment process as to every individual bill. Over the course of the next year or two, with proper deliberation and a reasonable public understanding of what the separate bills say, immigration policy can be revised through a democratic process. The present situation has been building for at least 21 years, since the last amnesty in 1986. We can afford to take a deliberate approach to setting immigration policy for the next generation.

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Posted by John at 08:31 PM  |    |