Visa Lawyer Blog

On Saturday morning, the Senate failed to advance the DREAM Act (H.R. 5281) on a vote of 55-41. Sixty votes were needed to move the bill forward procedurally and stop any filibuster. With that loss, the fight for the DREAM Act is over, at least for this Congress. Below is a summary of Greg Chen’s report of this vote.

The vote tally in support of DREAM included three Republicans who crossed the aisle to join 50 Democrats and 2 Independents. Those three Rs were: Richard Lugar (IN) and Robert Bennett (UT) who had come out in support long ago and Lisa Murkowski (AK) who started signaling this week that she would vote “yes”. With their yes votes, DREAM maintained its status as a bi-partisan bill dating back nine years to when it was first introduced with seven Republican co-sponsors. Today, long-time DREAM champion Orrin Hatch (R-UT) failed even to show for the bill he originally sponsored in August 2001.

Unfortunately the gain of three Republicans today was not enough to make up the difference. Combined there are 58 Democrats and Independents in the Senate, and there are 42 Republicans. If all the Ds and Is voted in favor, only two Rs would have been needed to reach 60. But today 5 Democrats voted against DREAM: Baucus (MT); Hagan (NC); Nelson (NE); Pryor (AR); and Tester (MT). And one Democrat, newly elected Joe Manchin (WV) failed to show. To win on “cloture” 60 votes were needed no matter how many actually voted. Thus, a no-show counted as a “no” vote.

Update from AILA: Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Reid filed cloture on the DREAM Act (H.R. 5281) setting the bill up for the critical cloture vote in the Senate expected for Saturday, December 18. The Senate will need 60 votes for the DREAM Act to move forward.

This is the vote we’ve all been waiting for. With only days left in the lame duck session of Congress, there won’t be another chance. You must continue making calls and sending emails to all Senators to urge them to vote “yes” on DREAM when the Senate brings it up for a vote.

All congressional offices should be contacted, but if you live in these states, we REALLY need your support because one of your Senators is a SWING VOTE on DREAM!

Great news to report today about private Bills. A private bill is one providing benefits to specified individuals (including corporate bodies). Individuals sometimes request relief through private law when administrative or legal remedies are exhausted, but Congress seems more often to view private legislation as appropriate in cases for which no other remedy is available, and when its enactment would, in a broad sense, afford equity.

From 1817 through 1971, most Congresses enacted hundreds of private laws, but since then the number has declined sharply, as Congress has expanded agency discretion to deal with many of the situations that tended to give rise to private bills. Private provisions also are occasionally included in public legislation.

The private immigration bills passed by the House on today — they had already been passed by the Senate — are the first to be approved in more than five years. The measures now go to President Barack Obama for his signature.

New York Mayor Bloomberg said on Friday that the economy is suffering because of Washington’s failure to change restrictive policies, he said, and talented entrepreneurs were taking their ideas to other countries that are only too happy to host them. He was right on the ball with his statements.

“If we keep the best and the brightest out of this country, all the next big things will happen outside this country,” the mayor said during a speech at the New York Stock Exchange.

Mr. Bloomberg has been making the economic argument for immigration reform for months, and his pitch clearly resonated Friday at the annual meeting of the Partnership for New York City, a leading business group. He has created a national task force of mayors and chief executives — many of whom were in the room — to call for a path to legalization for the millions of illegal immigrants who are already in the United States, and for a loosening of green card and visa restrictions to allow for more educated and highly skilled immigrants to move here.

The House voted and passed H.R. 6497, while the Senate moves to a vote on whether to proceed to its own version of the DREAM Act, S. 3992. The senate will be a much more difficult task. The 216-198 vote, mostly on partisan lines, sends the DREAM Act to the Senate, where it was uncertain if supporters had the votes to overcome a certain Republican filibuster against it.

Both bills are strong pieces of legislation which would allow the 65,000 young undocumented students who graduate high school each year to start a pathway to citizenship after completing two years of college or military service. Organizations and individuals from across the country-from California to Kentucky, Oklahoma to New York-have joined together to support the DREAM Act. Thousands of undocumented students and their supportive classmates and teachers have met with their members of Congress, sent letters, held rallies, and staged hunger strikes and other activities in pursuit of making the DREAM Act a reality.

While both bills are similar to the original versions of the DREAM Act introduced in each chamber, they differ in key ways. Under the Senate version of the DREAM Act, applicants are treated as conditional nonimmigrants for ten years before being allowed to apply for permanent residence.