Immigration | featured news

The bipartisan coalition behind a contentious overhaul of immigration laws stuck together on a critical early series of test votes Thursday, turning back challenges from conservative critics as the Senate Judiciary Committee refined legislation to secure the nation's borders and offer eventual citizenship to millions living illegally in the United States.

Aiming to show he's still focused on creating jobs, President Barack Obama is beginning a series of quick trips around the country to resurrect ideas from his State of the Union address that became overshadowed by the intense debates over gun control, immigration and automatic spending cuts.

Here’s an odd political reality: The collapse of the gun bill in the Senate last week may well make the passage of immigration reform legislation slightly easier. “I think the continued intensity of the dysfunction of Congress on this [gun] vote will help immigration,” Democratic pollster John Anzalone said. “I don’t think the opposing senators — Democrats and Republicans — expected the reaction, backlash and how they were portrayed” in the wake of the failure of the amendment to expand background checks for firearms purchases.

Senator Charles E. Grassley said, “Given the events of this week, it’s important for us to understand the gaps and loopholes in our immigration system.”

After months of negotiations, a bipartisan group of eight senators is poised to offer a sweeping bill to rewrite the nation's immigration laws this week, taking advantage of a changed political alignment that, for the first time in nearly a generation, appears to have opened the way for comprehensive legislation.

The proposal comes just days before a bipartisan group of eight senators is expected to present its own blueprint.

With a bipartisan group of senators expected to unveil immigration-reform legislation in the next few days, a brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that nearly two-thirds of Americans – including eight-in-10 Latinos – support giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.

Employers say guest visa rules are complex and costly. Labor groups say they fail to protect workers. Fixing things won't be easy... There are millions of undocumented workers in America, and thousands of employers who illegally hire them.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans favor giving illegal immigrants an opportunity for legal status, according to a poll by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday that illegal immigrants should be allowed to become U.S. taxpayers and ultimately get a shot at citizenship, a significant step for the Tea Party favorite amid growing Republican acceptance of the idea.