"Unworkable" Immigration Bill Fails

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Saying that the failed Senate's draft immigration plan – voted down Thursday morning – was “in need of major reconstruction work from the get-go,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said Thursday afternoon that “Hard-working immigrant workers in this country deserve a real path to citizenship as a part of comprehensive immigration reform, and it is disappointing that this congress cannot advance that important goal.” The Senate vote on the bill “fell dramatically short of the 60 votes needed” to approve the measure and marks the “second time in a month the bill was pulled from the Senate floor,” reports Jonathan Weisman of the Washington Post. Senate Democratic leaders say the bill would not be brought back for another vote, Weisman reports. Sweeney added that “Mounting anti-family and anti-worker provisions made the Senate's immigration bill unworkable and ultimately regressive in terms of immigrant and workers' rights. If approved, it would have only perpetuated the problems it intended to solve.” Sweeney pledged “to work with the immigrant rights community and our allies in Congress to devise a truly comprehensive model that places immigrant and workers' rights at the head of the line.”