From NY Post:

SENATE SI VOTE LOOKS DEAD AT HOUSE DOOR

By DEBORAH ORIN and IAN BISHOP Post Correspondents

May 26, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - The Senate last night voted 62-36 to pass an immigration bill that would legalize up to 11 million illegal aliens, but it remains highly questionable whether it will ever become law.

Republicans controlling the House of Representatives are adamantly opposed to what they say is mass "amnesty" for illegal aliens and have vowed to block any legalization plan.

Democrats, including Chuck Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, voted 39-4 in favor of the bill. Three of the four Democrats who voted no are up for re-election.

Republicans, in defying President Bush, who favors legalization, voted against it by 32-23.

Democrats immediately sought to put the onus on Bush to exert pressure on Republicans.

"We will get a bill if the president rolls up his sleeves and goes to work. He's got to really be here on [Capitol] Hill," Schumer said.

House Homeland Security chairman Pete King (R-L.I.), who is against the legalization plan, said: "If they couldn't get a majority of Republican senators to vote for this bad bill, there's no way they're going to get a majority of House Republicans."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a chief sponsor of the Senate bill, tried to sound optimistic, saying: "We're not drawing any lines in the sand. . . . I think there is a lot of room for maneuver."

One possible compromise, some say, is to authorize foreign guest workers but bar them from citizenship.

The next step is for House and Senate negotiators to work on a compromise in a joint conference committee. But they'll be starting out with two bills that are diametrically opposed.

Both bills back border fences - 370 miles in the Senate, 698 in the House - but only the Senate bill creates a 200,000-a-year guest-worker program and offers legalization to millions.

Critics like Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) said the Senate bill would actually "discriminate against American workers" in favor of illegal aliens.

They note the bill would guarantee that a child of illegal aliens can go anywhere in America and get low-cost in-state college tuition while a New Yorker, say, is only eligible in New York.

The Senate bill also would guarantee that immigrant guest workers get paid the "prevailing wage" plus protections against firing from farm jobs that American workers don't have.

The Senate bill also allows illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits for work they did while in illegal status and fraudulently using someone else's Social Security number.

Under the Senate bill, illegal aliens are supposed to learn English, pay fines up to $3,250 and pay back taxes to "earn" legalization - but many got such low pay they'd owe no tax.

In fact, many stood to collect a taxpayer-funded reward check - instead of owing taxes - under earned income tax credit. The Senate voted 50-47 last night to bar EITC payments for illegal work.