WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday approved a sweeping bill that would upgrade border security and offer a path to citizenship to most illegal immigrants in the U.S., setting up a major -- and probably bitter -- confrontation over revamping immigration policy.
The bill passed 62 to 36, moving Congress a significant step closer to the first overhaul of immigration law since 1986.
But key differences between the Senate measure and a bill the House passed late last year mean that the legislation's final contours -- if an agreement can even be reached -- remain uncertain.
The effort to reach a compromise, strongly endorsed by President Bush, now rests with House and Senate negotiators who will conduct their talks behind closed doors.
Staunch opposition to the Senate bill from House conservatives is a key hurdle to an accord. They view any provisions that would permit illegal immigrants to become citizens as a reward for criminal activity.
Still, passage of the Senate bill represents a victory for Bush, who began a push for a broad overhaul of immigration policy with a speech in January 2004. His proposals sparked an extended debate about border security, the role of immigrants in American life and how best to deal with the estimated 12 million people who are in the country illegally.
For many lawmakers, the challenge in rewriting immigration laws has been to find a middle ground between recognizing the nation's heritage as a nation of immigrants and planning for its future in an uncertain age of terrorism.
Resolving the immigration issue in a comprehensive way "is a national security issue," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the leaders of the bipartisan coalition that shepherded the Senate bill to passage.
Referring to the path to citizenship that the bill would create for illegal immigrants, McCain said: "Some Americans believe we must find all these millions, round them up and send them back. I don't know how you do that. I don't know why you would want to."
But some conservative senators roundly condemned the legalization provisions.
"This bill is going to make the problem of illegal immigrants much worse," said Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), arguing that the legalization measures would simply draw more people across the border.
Like many of the Senate bill's opponents, Vitter said Congress needed to produce a measure that dealt solely with beefed-up security at the nation's borders and stricter enforcement of immigration law in the workplace.
