The drive to get the core of a sweeping immigration bill through a Democrat-controlled Senate committee ended in success, but showed how some aspects of the bill provide ammunition for critics who seek to derail the historic measure if it is not altered.

The bill remained largely intact after five hearings in which members of the Senate Judiciary Committee debated and voted on more than 200 amendments. That gave sponsors of the bill a preview of how the bill may be attacked in June when the full Senate begins deliberations and a House group introduces their immigration bill.

The bill, written by a bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Eight, would allow the nation’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship. It also provides $6.5 billion to enhance border security and increases the number of high-tech and low-skilled workers allowed in on a temporary basis.

As the committee pored over the amendments, Republicans were rebuffed on attempts to boost the numbers of Border Patrol agents and prevent citizenship from being offered until the border is proven secure. Attempts to require employers to recruit and hire Americans before hiring foreigners were also blocked.

Here’s a look at some of the strategies used in Judiciary that could re-emerge as the immigration debate continues.

How much more border security?

Republican members of the committee often cited the 1986 bill that granted amnesty to up to 3 million unauthorized immigrants, but did not fulfill its promise of securing the border. So they tried several ways to further enhance the border security components of the bill.

The bill calls for an additional 3,500 Border Patrol agents to man the nation’s southwest border with Mexico. But Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, proposed an amendment to raise that number to 40,000. His amendment was voted down.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., tried to amend the bill to require the federal government to collect the fingerprints of every foreigner leaving the country. That would help the country keep better track of people who leave and those who have stayed behind in violation of their visas.

The committee reached a compromise when it approved a test program to collect fingerprints of departing foreigners at the nation’s 30 busiest international airports.

The changes did not satisfy some on the committee, such as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who called the changes “inefficient, ineffective and unrealistic.”

After bill co-author Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said he’d like to see more done to secure the border, these attempts will re-emerge in the weeks ahead.

Limiting the path to citizenship

Under the bill, most of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants can apply for temporary legal status that allows them to live and work in the country within six months, then apply to get their green card in 10 years and U.S. citizenship three years later.

Senators tried a variety of ways to eliminate those provisions entirely, or limit the pool of people who could gain legal status.

Sessions unsuccessfully tried to bar people who could become “public charges” or receive government benefits from receiving any of legal status. Cruz filed an amendment that would allow unauthorized immigrants to gain the temporary legal status and also get green cards, but would be forever barred from becoming full U.S. citizens.

Cruz argued that the immigration bill was being “held hostage” by the demand that it includes a path to citizenship. But supporters of the bill said that would create a permanent underclass of citizens and voted down the amendment.

Many members of the House have expressed reservations about legalizing the population, so expect plenty of debate there on this topic.

High-tech foreigners vs. American workers

The bill got a major boost when Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, reached a compromise with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on a visa program for high-skilled workers.

The original bill would have required companies using the H-1B visas to first extend a job offer to a qualified American worker before hiring a visa holder from overseas. It also gave the Department of Labor the power to audit companies for up to two years to review those decisions.

Technology firms lobbied to strike those provisions, and the Hatch-Schumer compromise did so for a huge swath of U.S. technology companies.

That agreement will go a long way toward appeasing Republicans concerned about the burdens placed on the U.S. businesses, but it upset labor union advocates. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said he still supports the overall bill, but said the pieces of the Hatch-Schumer amendment “are unambiguous attacks on American workers” and said his group might fight it on the Senate floor.

Preferential treatment for some countries

Some Democratic lawmakers were upset that the immigration bill eliminates the Diversity Visa Lottery, which grants up to 55,000 visas a year from underrepresented countries, many from Africa, in an attempt to make the U.S. immigration system more merit-based.

But some senators have been able to carve out protections for some countries, a tactic that could re-emerge as the bill advances through Congress.

For example, the committee approved an amendment from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to grant 5,000 visas over three years to displaced Tibetans. Thousands of Filipinos who fought with the U.S. during World War II were rewarded with U.S. citizenship, but not their children. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, won approval of an amendment to speed up their applications to join their parents.

Same-sex couples

One of the most emotional moments over the five days of hearings was when committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced an amendment to extend immigration rights to same-sex couples.

Under the amendment, U.S. citizens could petition for their spouses if they were legally married in another country. Leahy introduced the amendment, but withdrew it after several Democratic senators expressed their strong support but said it would ruin the chances of passing the overall immigration bill.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., strongly supported Leahy’s amendment, but said it was the “wrong moment” to try and pass a bill for same-sex couples.

But gay rights advocates vowed to press on, and the debate could resurface in the weeks to come.

Contributing: Fredreka Schouten

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Republican senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have arrived at the contentious issue of immigration from very similar places.

Both came from immigrant families. Both have Cuban roots. Both rose to the Senate with help from the Tea Party and still speak in glowing terms about how the U.S. remains the greatest nation for downtrodden immigrants to lift themselves up.

But as Congress arrives at a key moment in its work to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, the two stand at opposite ends of the debate on whether to allow the nation’s 11million unauthorized immigrants to become citizens. That divide mirrors the argument within the Republican Party over how to handle the immigration bill — and could end up propelling, or sinking, the two senators as they mull possible presidential runs in 2016.

“Each approach, each strategy represents a bet on the future that’s very different,” said Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor at the University of Texas. “It is kind of stunning, but they need some separation so they can have their fight.”

Although the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday approved a sweeping immigration bill, which Rubio helped write as part of the bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Eight, the men remain fiercely divided over the issue.

Rubio, who served as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives before winning election to the U.S. Senate in 2010, has become the chief salesman of the immigration bill.

He says deporting the millions of people here illegally is not doable, or affordable, and rejects the idea of making life so miserable for them that they decide to “self-deport.”

Instead, he says, they should be placed on an “earned” pathway to citizenship that will take at least 13 years for most, will cost at least $2,000 in fees, and requires they pass criminal background checks, learn English and civics.

“The vast majority of conservative Republicans are saying, ‘We are prepared; we know we need to do immigration reform, just please make sure that this illegal immigration wave doesn’t happen again,’” Rubio told CBS This Morning. “I think that’s a very reasonable request.”

Cruz, who served as Texas’ solicitor general before winning his Senate seat in 2012, has become one of the most vocal critics of the Gang of Eight bill, which he voted against Tuesday. He says allowing unauthorized immigrants to get citizenship is unfair to the millions of people who have waited years, and sometimes decades, applying for green cards.

“If there’s a pathway to citizenship … that is inconsistent with the rule of law,” Cruz said Tuesday. “It’s unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who have followed the rules, who have waited in line years and sometimes decades to come. And … if the pathway to citizenship is included in legislation that Congress passes, it will serve only to encourage yet more illegal immigration.”

Rubio and Cruz’s offices declined repeated requests for interviews for this story. But their stances on immigration resonate beyond the Capitol as their supporters wonder how it will affect their future prospects.

Where Americans stand on the issue is not clear, according to polling. A Gallup poll conducted in April reported that 65% of Americans support a plan that allows the nation’s unauthorized immigrants to become citizens. But a Pew Research Center poll in late March had only 43% of Americans agreeing with the idea.

OBSTRUCTION TO CITIZENSHIP

The March poll showed that Republican support for a pathway to citizenship dropped, with only 57% in favor. And some members of the Tea Party movement feel betrayed by Rubio’s embrace of immigration.

John Baker, a retired police commander who is now coordinator of the Pensacola Patriots, has met with Rubio and praises him for sticking to his conservative principles on most issues. But not immigration. “The Tea Partiers feel like he’s reversed his ethics when it comes to immigration,” Baker said. “He’s an intelligent young man. But he’s hurt his political career, and he knows that.”

Dan Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida, says Rubio’s embrace of the immigration bill is the latest in a winding road on immigration. As a state legislator, Rubio supported a Florida plan giving college tuition breaks to children of unauthorized immigrants, but veered right during his Senate campaign by embracing Arizona’s 2010 immigration law that cracked down on unauthorized immigrants.

Now, Smith says Rubio is moving back to the middle to win over the widest possible audience.

“I think it’s because he has a pretty good sense of the political winds as well as popular support for immigration reform,” Smith said. “I think he’s looking at a potential run for president and seeing that public opinion strongly supports a reform that is not going to ship everyone back.”

Whatever support he loses from his conservative base, however, could be offset by gaining support among the fast-growing Hispanic electorate. Ever since Romney’s dismal performance among Hispanics — he garnered just 27% of the Hispanic vote in 2012 compared with the 40% President George W. Bush collected during his successful 2004 re-election campaign — GOP leaders have made efforts to woo Hispanic voters.

Rubio has said repeatedly that his decision to join the Gang of Eight has nothing to do with politics, but some Republican leaders say his decision is definitely helping him.

Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, says Rubio may face a tougher time surviving a GOP primary but he said party members as a whole understand they can’t have a repeat of the 2012 primaries where candidates were openly battling to be the hardest on unauthorized immigrants.

“On Nov. 7, 2012, we awoke to a very different political reality,” Aguilar said. “Finally, we understand the decisiveness and the impact the Latino vote can have and that you cannot be nationally viable if you don’t have strong support from Latinos.”

“Rubio understands that,” Aguilar said. “I don’t think Cruz does.”

But Cruz’s opposition to citizenship for people who broke U.S. laws to be here has cemented his hold on the Tea Party, whose members and sympathizers have are active in GOP primary elections nationwide.

While senators on the Judiciary Committee have been sorting through more than 300 amendments to the bill, Cruz is the only one on an 18-member committee not to have any of his amendments adopted. One of his amendments would have tripled the number of Border Patrol agents on the Southwest border — from about 20,000 to 60,000. Another states that no unauthorized immigrants can ever become a U.S. citizen.

“If you’re somebody in another country who wants to come to the United States and you followed the rules, you applied to come legally, if we pass something that allows those here illegally to achieve citizenship, it means you’re a chump for having stayed in your own country and followed the rules,” Cruz said on conservative Sean Hannity’s radio show.

Buchanan, who specializes in presidential politics, says he believes Cruz is making the calculation there are enough Republicans who oppose Rubio’s bill that he can raise his profile by being its loudest opponent. “He’s creating a brand that’s getting more attention than anyone in D.C., and that includes Rubio,” he says.

WHAT’S SAID VS. HOW IT’S SAID

The battle over immigration still has a long way to go. The next stop — the Senate floor — is where the last major attempt to overhaul immigration laws died in 2007. And Cruz’s opposition to a pathway to citizenship should have more support when the debate shifts to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

A group of 27 conservative groups including the American Conservative Union issued a statement last month supporting the immigration bill.

“Simply opposing immigration reform should not be the conservative response to this problem,” the statement read. “We believe conservatives should be leading the way on this issue by supporting legislation that upholds conservative principles.”

On Tuesday, a coalition of influential conservative leaders including Tea Partiers issued an open letter comparing the “bloated and unwieldy” bill to “Obamacare” and echoed many concerns Cruz has made.

Yet it may be not the arguments the two men make but the way they make that will matter most to their future ambitions.

“Their position on immigration reflects their attitude,” said Lionel Sosa, a San Antonio-based media consultant who advised Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush.

“And a candidate’s attitude has to do with whether people will like them enough to vote for them. People have to know you, people have to like you, and if they don’t like you, they don’t vote for you. That’s up to them.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

After three long weeks of hearings and debates, spectators burst out into screams and applause Tuesday night after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved an immigration bill that would be the biggest overhaul to the nation’s immigration laws in a generation.

The bill was produced by a bipartisan group of senators known as the Gang of Eight. With four of those members on the committee, the bill survived 212 amendments over five lengthy hearings.

Left intact was the core of the bill, which will allow the nation’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship, add significant investments in border security and fundamentally alter the legal immigration system of the future.

The committee approved the bill 13-5, meaning the bill is on track to be debated on the full Senate floor beginning the first week of June.

Some Republicans warned that the amendment process had done little to assuage their fears that they were facing a repeat of 1986, when Congress last passed a sweeping immigration bill that allowed up to 3 million people to gain citizenship, but did not fulfill its promises of fully securing the nation’s borders.

“Today, we’re right back at the same place talking about the same problems and proposing the same solutions,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and the ranking member of the committee.

The committee’s chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said it was not “the bill I would’ve written,” but he called it the best opportunity for immigration reform he’s seen in years.

“We’ve demonstrated to the United States Senate that we can all work together, Republicans and Democrats,” Leahy said. “Now let’s go out of this room, and work together with the other members of the Senate.”

President Obama issued a statement late Tuesday, congratulating the committee for advancing the bill that is “largely consistent with the principles of common-sense reform I have proposed and meets the challenge of fixing our broken immigration system.”

“None of the committee members got everything they wanted, and neither did I, but in the end, we all owe it to the American people to get the best possible result over the finish line,” the statement read.

Tuesday’s vote capped off a grueling, sometimes-emotional trek through the committee where senators voted on everything from visas for displaced Tibetans to the ability of unauthorized immigrants to access government benefits. Sponsors of the bill tried to accept as many Republican amendments as they could to garner their support, while holding off “poison pill” amendments that could scuttle the carefully negotiated bill.

One example came Tuesday, when Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., finished days of negotiations and reached a breakthrough compromise on visas for high-tech workers.

The bill increases the number of H1-B visas that are primarily given to foreigners trained in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, but Hatch and other Republicans worried that the bill placed too many restrictions on U.S. tech companies trying to hire those workers. Tuesday’s agreement requires companies to make a good faith effort to hire Americans for high-skilled technology jobs, but eases some of the hiring requirements originally in the bill.

Hatch called it a “sensible and reasoned balance” that made the final product a “much more acceptable bill.”

Sponsors of the bill also found middle ground in the border security debate.

The committee voted down an amendment from Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to require that all the nation’s airports, seaports, and land ports of entry establish a system to collect the fingerprints of all departing foreigners. Republicans, and some Democrats, feel that is the most efficient system to track who has remained in the country after their visas have expired. That is a major concern since 40% of the nation’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants fall into that group.

On Monday, the committee accepted a scaled-down version of the program. Under an amendment filed by Hatch, the nation’s 10 busiest international airports will have to implement the program within two years, and it will be expanded to the 30 biggest airports within six years.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

All foreigners departing from the nation’s 10 busiest airports will have to have their fingerprints scanned within two years, according to a plan adopted by a Senate panel Monday.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has been debating a sweeping immigration bill to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws for three weeks now, and properly securing the nation’s borders has been a time-consuming, rigorous debate throughout.

Republicans on the committee, led by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., spent much time last week pushing for a nationwide program to collect the “biometric” data of people leaving the U.S., such as fingerprints and iris scans. They want that system to better track so-called “visa overstays” — people who enter the country legally but remain in the county after their visas expire. That group makes up about 40% of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country.

“If you’re a sovereign nation, you’ve got to control your borders. That’s what other countries do,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, during Monday’s debate.

That plan was voted down last week when Democrats, led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said it was too expensive and too complicated. She and others worried that failure to develop the system, which the government has been unable to implement despite congressional mandates dating back to 2001, would prevent the nation’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants from being able to apply for green cards and U.S. citizenship.

Feinstein said she fully supports a “biometric” program but argued that the current system of collecting “biographic” information, such as names and dates of birth, when people leave the country has been successful enough.

But on Monday, Feinstein and others on the committee agreed to a scaled-down proposal from Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Under the plan, which was adopted on a 13-5 vote, the Department of Homeland Security would be required to:

Feinstein, who chairs the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, called Hatch’s compromise a responsible response to the complaints raised during the border security debate.

“It really shows that people have listened to the discussion here,” she said.

The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to continue voting on more than 300 amendments to the immigration bill throughout the week. Follow @alangomez on Twitter for live updates.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

After years of negotiating and a week that saw one of its members nearly bolt from the group, a bipartisan group of House members announced Thursday that they had reached a deal “in principle” on a bill to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws.

A group of senators filed their version of an immigration bill last month and have been debating and amending it in a Senate committee for the past two weeks.

Now, members of the House group say they will have their bill filed by early June to begin hearings.

“We have finalized an agreement in principle,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., one of the members of the group, said after the meeting. “I think it’s a very responsible, serious, well-thought-out and enforceable piece of legislation.”

The announcement caps off a stressful week for members of the group, as Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, threatened to quit the group if they didn’t reach an agreement by Thursday. But the group came together Thursday night and Carter emerged from the meeting saying they had reached the agreement in principle, according to The Hill.

Members of the House group declined to offer any details of their agreement on Thursday, saying they still have to finish drafting the final pieces of the bill.

Members of the group are: Diaz-Balart, Reps. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.; John Carter, R-Texas;

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

WASHINGTON — A Senate committee debating a sweeping immigration law Tuesday rejected a proposal from a Republican senator to collect the fingerprints of foreigners departing from the United States as a way to locate foreigners who stay beyond their time limits.

Senators voted on wide range of issues Tuesday, including closer monitoring of student visas following the Boston Marathon bombing, the use of drones along the southwest border, work visas for highly-skilled immigrants and the total number of immigrants allowed into the country. But members of the so-called Gang of Eight senators who drafted the immigration bill dodged a major bullet when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted down the proposal to fingerprint all departing passengers.

Securing the nation’s border has been a critical concern for Republicans as they consider the biggest overhaul of U.S. immigration laws in a generation. Forty percent of the estimated 11 million people here illegally arrived here legally but overstayed their visit limit.

The proposed overhaul requires that the Department of Homeland Security complete a system to collect the biographic information — such as name and date of birth — of all people leaving the country.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., proposed amending the bill to require Homeland Security to also check the biometric data — such as fingerprints and iris scans — of people leaving the country so the government knows exactly who is leaving and, more importantly, who has remained in the country in violation of their visas.

Sessions said the program, which has been mandated by Congress several times starting in 2001, was the most effective way to know who’s in the country illegally.

And since nearly half of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants entered the country legally, he said, failure to enact the full biometric program would make it impossible to fully secure the nation’s borders and persuade Americans to support the immigration bill.

“This is one reason the American people have so little confidence in the promises we make,” Sessions said.

Sessions quoted former Department of Homeland Security secretaries Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, who told USA TODAY that a biometric exit system is the “gold standard” for the program. Some on the Senate Judiciary Committee agreed.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said she has “pushed and shoved” Homeland Security to finalize the biometric exit system and has been frustrated over its inability to do so.

“I think Sen. Sessions has a point,” Feinstein said. “There’s no question in my mind that the biometric system is the fail-safe system.”

But she and others on the committee said the program is too expensive. Homeland Security estimated in 2008 that implementing the program at airports and seaports would cost between $3.1 billion and $6.4 billion. The Gang of Eight bill says unauthorized immigrants would not be able to apply for citizenship until the exit system is completed, which raised concerns among some members of the committee that unauthorized immigrants would wait too long to go through a legalization process that Democrats view as a major aim of the bill.

“We would all concede that the biometric approach is a more sophisticated and perhaps a better approach,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and one of the members of the Gang of Eight. “But we also have to concede that it’s been elusive … because of the expense and the technical challenge.”

The amendment was voted down 12-6.

Other amendments considered Tuesday:

The votes came on the second day of hearings on the 867-page immigration bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The next hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

The Heritage Foundation on Friday announced the resignation of Jason Richwine, the co-author of an immigration report who came under fire after his college dissertation claiming immigrants have lower IQ scores than the “white native population” went public.

“Jason Richwine let us know he’s decided to resign from his position,” the conservative think tank said in a statement. “He’s no longer employed by Heritage.”

Richwine was one of two co-authors on a report released Monday by Heritage that predicted a $6.3 trillion economic loss for the U.S. if a Senate immigration bill becomes law, legalizing the nation’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants and bringing in more foreigners on work visas. The report was controversial, as even some Republicans, including Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., argued it exaggerated the costs.

Two days later, Heritage came under intense criticism when it was revealed that Richwine’s doctoral dissertation while he was at Harvard University — titled “IQ and Immigration Policy” — contended that the lower IQ of immigrants represented a mental divide that “is likely to persist over several generations.”

“The consequences are a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrants groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of unskilled workers in the American labor market,” Richwine wrote. “Selecting high-IQ immigrants would ameliorate these problems in the U.S., while at the same time benefiting smart potential immigrants who lack educational access in their home countries.”

Richwine’s resignation was welcomed Friday by groups that had been protesting Heritage, but some said it has not gone far enough.

Zack Langway of the Center for Community Change, a social justice organization, said the resignation was “far too little and far too late.” Langway’s group formed an online petition on Thursday to get Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina senator who now heads the Heritage Foundation, to resign.

“It’s the leadership and Jim DeMint himself who need to be held accountable. Jim DeMint needs to resign,” Langway said.

After news of Richwine’s college dissertation broke, Heritage defended its study, saying the data and methodology were sound. The statement said the authors did not rely on any of Richwine’s previous work in analyzing the economic impact of immigrants on the U.S. economy.

Follow @alangomez on Twitter.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

WASHINGTON — Senators who back a sweeping immigration law said Thursday they were heartened by the first big test of the proposal in which members of both parties were allowed to make changes to the bill.

The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee adopted eight amendments offered by Republicans and 13 from Democrats. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said some of the Republican amendments have helped strengthen the bill and should encourage more GOP members of Congress to consider voting for it.

“We all know this is going to be a long, hard road but we’re off to a good start,” Schumer said. “I think our arguments are holding firm.”

But Republican critics said the bill still ignores important demands on border security that will make it difficult to pass the Senate and especially the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, saw the committee vote down one of his amendments that would have tripled the size of the Border Patrol and quadrupled the number of drones and sensors used to patrol the southwest border with Mexico.

“The American people want Congress to be serious about border security,” Cruz said. “That is true among Republicans and Democrats. It is true in red states and blue states. And it is with regret that the committee has consistently rejected any attempts to put real teeth in this bill to secure the border.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and the ranking member on the committee, echoed the concerns of many Republicans worried that the bill allows the nation’s estimted 11 million unauthorized immigrants to get legal status before the nation’s borders are secured.

“No one can dispute that this bill is legalization first and security second,” Grassley said.

Cruz’s measure was one of seven GOP amendments that was voted down, compared to Democrats who did not have any of their amendments struck down.

That prompted Dan Stein, president of the Federation of American Immigration Reform, a group that opposes the bill, to call the hearing “a complete sham of a process.” Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, a group that supports the bill, said the senators fought off any “poison pills” that could doom the prospects of the bill.

The committee was focusing on the border security sections of the 867-bill during Thursday’s hearing – the first of several hearings when senators are expected to vote on more than 300 amendments that have been filed.

One of the biggest changes to the bill was an amendment filed by Grassley that ensures that the Department of Homeland Security focus on securing the entire southwestern border. According to the bill, Homeland Security must monitor 100% of the border, and intercept 90% of people crossing, only in sectors deemed “high risk.” That’s defined as sectors where 30,000 people were apprehended in the previous year, and in 2012 would have included three of the nine border sectors.

Grassley’s amendment requires the department to reach those goals in all border sectors.

The committee voted down a separate Grassley amendment that would have required that Homeland Security certify the entire border as secured before the nation’s unauthorized immigrants can be granted temporary legal status.

The bill as written only requires that Homeland Security create and submit a plan to secure the entire border before those immigrants can apply to become “Registered Provisional Immigrants,” which would allow them to legally reside and work in the country.

The committee is now finished with the border security portion of the bill. They must still vote on portions that deal with legalizing the nation’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants, enforcing immigration at work-sites and revamping the legal immigration system. The next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, and there are still several ways in which any momentum on the bill may be disrupted:

The committee is set to resume hearing amendments after the lunch break and will continue throughout the day, and there still exists several ways in which any momentum on the bill may be disrupted:

Same-Sex Immigration Rights