The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13 to 5 on Tuesday to approve a sweeping immigration reform bill after five days of debate over dozens of amendments. A compromise was reached on two sticking points in the debate - the question of H-1B visas for high-skilled workers as well as the extension of the right to sponsor foreign same-sex partners for permanent legal status - which has exasperated high-tech companies and angered gay rights advocates. The bill will go to the full Senate for debate next month.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont, had introduced the Uniting American Families Act, an amendment which would have allowed gay married Americans to sponsor their foreign-born spouses for green cards, as can straight married Americans. But he decided to withdraw it after pressure from Democratic peers mounted.
"I don't want to blow this bill apart," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., according to the Associated Press.
Senator Richard Durbin, D-Ill., chimed in that he believed "in my heart of hearts that what you're doing is the right and just thing. But I believe this is the wrong moment, that this is the wrong bill."
Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer of New York and Al Franken of Minnesota also voiced their support for withdrawing the amendment, and in the end Leahy relented. The Democrats feared that the inclusion of the amendment would prove to be a so-called "poison pill" - a feature which would rupture an already-tenuous bipartisan accord and trigger Republican dissent to the bill which their fellow party members would not be able to rein in when it comes to a Senate vote.
According to the Washington Post, Schumer called it "one of the most excruciatingly difficult decisions I've had to make in 30-plus years in public office...Not to do this is rank discrimination." But he said that Republicans "made it perfectly clear in plain words and on multiple occasions that if this provision is added to the bill they will have no choice but to abandon our collective effort, and a once-in-a-generation effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform will be finished."
In addition to the withdrawal of the gay marriage amendment, the committee worked out a compromise amendment on the question of high-tech visas, the H-1B. The amendment lifts a requirement that tech companies first offer jobs to Americans unless the firm depends on foreigners for more than 15 percent of its workforce. The legislation would also raise the annual cap on H-1B visas to as much as 180,000, from the previous 65,000.
The Post reported that the president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, called the compromises on high-tech jobs "unambiguous attacks on American workers".
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