Democrats face long odds on immigration measure

WASHINGTON (AP):

The chance for hundreds of thousands of foreign-born youngsters brought to the United States illegally to gain legal status is dwindling as time runs out on the Democratic-controlled Congress.

House and Senate Democratic leaders scheduled votes yesterday to advance legislation that would pave the way for legalising the young immigrants, over opposition by most Republicans and several in their own party.

"It's an uphill struggle," Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat, acknowledged hours before the vote. "We're trying."

The so-called Dream Act is a top priority of Democrats and politically active Hispanic groups, who call it a crucial down payment on a broader immigration overhaul. Critics call the measure back-door amnesty for lawbreakers.

With the GOP taking control of the House and representing a stronger minority in the Senate next year, failure to enact the legislation by year end would virtually kill the last chance for years for any action by Congress to grant a path towards legalisation for the nation's millions of undocumented immigrants.

President Barack Obama's team has made an intense public push for the bill under pressure from Hispanic activists angry that the White House has not pressed harder for a broad immigration overhaul to give several million illegal immigrants a shot at legal status.

Fixing a 'broken' system

In recent days, the administration dispatched officials from the departments of Defence, Homeland Security and Commerce to argue vociferously in public that the legislation would boost national security and economic growth.

Yesterday, the White House issued a statement of support for the bill that called the current immigration system "broken".

"While the broader immigration debate continues, the administration urges the Senate to take this important step and pass the Dream Act," the statement said.

Obama's drive to enact the legislation and congressional Democrats' determination to vote on it before year end reflect the party's efforts to satisfy Hispanic groups whose backing has been critical in elections and will be again in 2012.

The legislation would give hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants brought to the United States before the age of 16, and who have been here for five years and graduated from high school or gained an equivalency degree, a chance to gain legal status if they joined the military or attended college.

Hispanic activists have described the Dream Act as the least Congress can do on the issue. It targets the most sympathetic of the millions of undocumented people - those brought to the United States as children, who in many cases consider themselves American, speak English and have no ties to or family living in their native countries.

The measure is "very, very far from amnesty," said Cecilia Munoz, Obama's director of intergovernmental affairs, citing the numerous hurdles those eligible would have to scale in order to keep their legal status and eventually become citizens.