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Before green cards are issued to those with provisional legal status, though, five security-related conditions would need to be met.
Most notably, top executive branch officials would have to certify that certain steps had been taken to secure borders. Those include towers, ground sensors, thermal imaging, unmanned aircraft systems, Blackhawk helicopters and marine vessels. A 700-mile fence would be built.
Twenty thousand additional Border Patrol agents would be added to the 18,400 already in place.
Opponents saw the plan as de facto amnesty and questioned whether the security provisions were realistic.
“The promises of an open and fair process have been as hollow as the promises that this bill is the toughest ever and will end the lawlessness in the future. It’s amnesty first and plainly lacks any mechanism, any commitment, to enforcement,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who led the opposition.
Other Republicans had a different take. They tend to represent states with large and growing Hispanic populations, and they were bowing to political reality. They saw their presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, win only about one-fourth of the Hispanic vote last year and are concerned that constituency is slipping away.
“If someone is going to be here in this country for 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 years, I want them to assimilate,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. “I want them to have the rights, and more importantly, the responsibilities that come with citizenship.”
Senate supporters had hoped that Thursday’s vote would provide momentum heading to the House, but it wasn’t immediately evident.
Boehner scheduled a July 10 meeting of House Republicans to plot the way forward. Finding bipartisan agreement is likely to be tough, since the House Republican caucus is dominated by conservatives unenthusiastic about a sweeping path to citizenship.
House Republican immigration writers have expressed a desire to present a series of bills, rather than a single comprehensive approach. The thinking is that allowing representatives to vote on several measures would make it easier to pass tough border security measures without forcing skeptical members to back a path to citizenship.
It remained unclear how much sentiment existed for any kind of program that could bring millions of undocumented immigrants to legal status.
“We are actually sending the right message to the American people that we are tolerant, but we are first a nation of laws,” said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho. “That’s what the American people want to make sure, that we enforce the laws that are in the books, not that we’re creating this atmosphere where we’re encouraging the people to violate the laws.”
But what, he was asked, would he do with the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants? “We don’t have to answer every question right now,” Labrador said.
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