Immigration Reform 2013: GOP ‘Border Surge’ Amendment Passes With 67 Votes To Set Up Final Senate Vote On Bill

On Monday evening, the US Senate voted to end debate on the "border surge" amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform bill, with 15 Republican senators joining all 52 Democrats. The amendment, sponsored by Republican Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota, is likely to be the last major change to the bill before it comes to a full vote in the Senate on Thursday. Intended as a concession to GOP members who had pushed for more border surveillance and apprehension measures, it calls for an additional 350 miles of "pedestrian" fencing specially designed to frustrate potential crossers (to make 700 miles' worth in total under the bill), another 20,000 Border Patrol agents (doubling the number), and $3.2 billion of high-powered surveillance and detection technologies including drone aircrafts. All of these measures would have to be implemented before currently undocumented immigrants could obtain permanent resident status (most of them would become eligible within 10 years).

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The vote on Monday evening gave the comprehensive bill extra momentum as supporters hoped to bring it to a Senate vote before a self-imposed July 4 deadline. It is expected to pass in the Senate, but the Republican-majority House of Representatives might be another issue. As such, the "Gang of Eight" senators who wrote the original bill have been pushing for a supermajority of votes as high as 70 in order to put extra pressure on the House.

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Among the 27 Republican senators who voted against the "border surge" amendment were two from Texas, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. Both base their opposition on the bill's proposed offer for legal status to the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. Cruz said on his website that the amendment offered "guaranteed and immediate legalization, followed by an empty promise of eventual border security." Cornyn had earlier submitted an amendment which would make the offer of permanent residency hinge on a much tougher set of border security requirements, including a 90 percent apprehension rate of illegal crossers along the entire 2,000-mile southern border, 100 percent surveillance of it, and the installation of a biometric exit system at all air and sea ports. That amendment was shot down after Democrats called it a "non-starter", saying those goals were logistically unattainable.

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Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) urged his fellow Republicans to vote for the amendment he sponsored in a speech on the Senate floor in which he quoted Jan Brewer (Arizona's GOP governor and well-known border hawk), who called it a "victory".

"I think we're building momentum and I'm really gratified that we had [that] number of votes," Corker told reporters afterward, according to ABC News. "There's no question it was crucial [to picking up GOP support]. I was involved in discussions and knew the vote count."