It’s dead:

“WASHINGTON – A White House-backed bill revamping U.S. immigration laws stalled in the Senate Thursday, handing President Bush a major legislative setback.

The sharply divided Senate refused to limit debate on the fragile compromise hammered out by a bipartisan group of senators and the White House. As a result, the legislation will be set aside and the Senate is expected to move on to other matters.

The bill would have tightened borders, instituted a new system to prevent employers from hiring undocumented workers, and given many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants a pathway to legal status. Conceived by an improbable coalition, it exposed deep rifts within both parties.”

Who wrote this news story, John McCain?

Nevertheless, while the uber right will celebrate, and the uber left will morn, the fact is that this bill was not doable. After nearly two weeks of reading through the bill and talking with a couple of truly non-partisan immigration experts this bill was not the bill to fix the problems we have with immigration.

This is a comprehensive issue and it will require both sides to sit down and weed it out. The problem with that is that for the most part everybody is either on one side or the other, but compromises don’t work that way.

Yet even so this bill had far more problems than it offered solutions. But I believe that what may come out of this disaster will be a far more realistic and doable bill, and not one that was drawn up in haste.

HH:

“The bill is off the floor and back to the drawing board. Good. It could not be salvaged with the process that was built on the premise of a jam down, but perhaps it can be made to work if the working group reconvenes and addresses the serious objections made by people willing to see a reform bill, but only one that puts security first.”