Senators Pushing for Broad Debate on Immigration Issue

Senators Pushing for Broad Debate on Immigration Issue

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“The U.S. Senate will spend much of this week tackling immigration policy.

Senators may decide the fate of a guest worker program and other reforms.

As the debate rages, Illinois’ Senators are pushing for a broad debate in Washington.

Supporters of immigrant rights say they’re starting the week on a high note.

Even though the House already passed a bill that focuses on penalties for being in the U.S. illegally, the Senate’s debating additional issues. Those include a guest worker program and immigration court reform.

Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin believes that’s the right approach.

""Our immigration system of laws has broken down completely,"" he says. ""And people who say, well, we have a way to allow people to become legal citizens and legal immigrants. It’s true, but it takes so long. It really is so much red tape and bureacracy, that it really is a failed system.""

Illinois U.S. Sen. Barack Obama agrees with Durbin on the need for comprehensive reform. But Obama says he wants empirical evidence that a guest worker program won’t cut jobs from current residents.

Obama says we need to study whether such a program would cut jobs for current residents.

Whatever the final bill might look like, there’s a deadline to write it.

The Senate majority leader wants a vote on comprehensive immigration reform by the end of this week.