Grassley, Harkin vote down immigration bill

By Dan Gearino | Thursday, June 28, 2007

TODAY: (Updated 11:59 a.m.) DES MOINES — Iowa's senators were on the prevailing side this morning as opponents of the immigration bill effectively killed the measure.

Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican, has been opposed to the bill from the start, while Sen. Tom Harkin previously has said he wanted to see if the bill could be improved to the point that he could support it.

Harkin, a Democrat, said just prior to the vote that he has decided that the bill has too many flaws to go forward.

"The longer this bill is out there, the worse it gets," he said in a conference call with reporters.

The bill's supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 they needed to limit debate and clear the way for a final vote.

Harkin said the bill's proposed guest-worker program is "an open invitation" for illegal immigrants, which will insure the continuation of the problems the bill is trying to solve.

"We'll have a whole new group of undocumented workers," he said.

Harkin also opposes a proposed point system for prospective immigrants, which he thinks is unfair to families and people who are poor.

"Under this provision, my mother wouldn't have been able to come to America," he said. “She was poor. She was ill-educated. She came over in steerage.”

Harkin’s mother came to the United States from Slovenia.

Throughout the debate, Grassley said he doesn't want to repeat the mistake he made in 1986 when he voted for an immigration bill that he thinks actually made the problem worse. He said both bills amount to amnesty for illegal immigrants.

"I voted for amnesty once. I'm not going to vote for it twice," he told reporters, a comment he has made several times over the past few months.

Dan Gearino can be contacted at 515-243-0138 and dan.gearino@lee.net. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.