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Legislation to overhaul the country's immigration laws passed a key procedural hurdle Tuesday, as the Senate voted 64-35 to move to the bill and put it on track for a final vote later this week.

The legislation, backed by the White House and most Democrats, must clear at least two more 60-vote tests this week -- allowing a final vote and a budgetary point of order -- and it faces uncertainty in the House, where conservatives on Tuesday said they would try to block it.

"I'm optimistic, but it could fall apart at any time," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Twenty-four Republicans joined most Democrats to approve the procedural motion. The next step, according to leadership aides, is for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to file an omnibus amendment containing 24 provisions that leaders have agreed will receive individual votes before final passage.

Among the last-minute changes in the list is a proposal by Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., to tighten restrictions on employers who use H-1B and L-1 guestworker visas for highly skilled foreign workers. Durbin's amendment is opposed by the high-tech community but will likely attract support from organized labor and other Democrats who are uneasy with guestworker programs in general.

To keep the list of amendments at 12 for each party, Durbin's amendment will replace one by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., that would have reduced the number of available guestworker visas annually by the number of visa holders who stay in the country beyond their two-year time limit.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., another of the bill's architects, said lawmakers are aware of concerns raised by Democrats that the bill's "point system" for granting green cards is unfair to families. But he tamped down reports that Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., is attempting to reach a separate deal on families.

"That's something we'll deal with in conference," Graham said.

Tuesday's vote gave the bill new life in the Senate, where it had languished after an earlier cloture vote failed. But conservative House Republicans stood their ground, holding a news conference on the Senate side of the Capitol to declare the bill would be dead on arrival in their chamber -- though they do not set the agenda.

Members of the Republican Study Committee also distanced themselves from President Bush, even as Bush was boosting the measure again at the White House.

"If you dislike the status quo on immigration, then you ought to be supporting a comprehensive approach to making sure the system works," Bush said just before the cloture vote was held. After the vote, White House spokesman Tony Snow said administration officials were "certainly pleased" by the outcome.

The RSC members, though, were certainly not pleased. "This bill increasingly is becoming a Democrat initiative ... and we want the folks of America to know what we're doing to try to stop it," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich. The House Republican Conference is expected to approve a Hoekstra motion expressing opposition to the Senate bill.

Christian Bourge and Keith Koffler contributed to this report.

COMMENTS

• It has been said over and over that we have the laws in place to address illegals but those in authority are not willing or staffed to do the job. Let’s use the laws we have and fund the agencies for the manpower to uphold them. We cannot deport all 12 million illegals but we can as we find them. Illegal is illegal, no matter how you slice it. Leave us not condone illegal activity and open the door for more illegals if this bill passes as we have when previous immigration reform laws were enacted. Susie Posted June 28, 2007 10:43 AM
• It would be a good idea to take into account the fact that in states like NY there is a direct corelation between the minimum wage, that was just raised, and welfare benefits. If the the elite in government think that making someone legal in the USA is going to cause them to work all those jobs that americans are to lazy, stupid or otherwise repulsed by, I would like to be confident that estimates of how long this trend/myth may be expected to last be included in these immigration debates before we the taxpayers are to fund this hurry up so as to appear to be doing something vote. Wayne E. Burke Posted June 27, 2007 10:27 AM
• Ted Kennedy was a strong supporter of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson which dramatically changed US immigration policy. This is what Ted Kennedy said about the 1965 bill. "The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." Kennedy is now the chair of the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship, and remains a strong advocate for immigrants, both documented and undocumented About the same time, there wasn't enough room for citizens to have children. Back in the 60’s the Federal Government came into the public schools and brainwashed us as little children with the message that the children we were about to have were unwanted because the population was rising so fast. They launched a program called, “Zero Population Growth”. They pushed Family Planning and birth control pills. I think you and I now both know that you only have to trick people for their few child bearing years and there is no going back. Many of us never had a say in the future of our unborn. I am the result of two living cells. One from each of my parents. They are the result of two living cells, one from each of their parents. I wasn't just born. I am a continuation of life. I am a living thing that reaches back into time perhaps 400 million years and the result of billions of joining of pairs of cells. It is possible that if you were to follow my cells back to my parent’s cells and beyond that my family tree touches every living thing here on earth. That is if we limit ourselves to believing life was created here on earth. If it rained down from the immensity of the universe it could reach back into that immensity of time and space, and who knows what relationships and who knows what species. At least until I came up against the United States Federal Government and their plan to control the population. I have seen the Federal Government do little else to control the population. The open border, United States laws only apply to some, is a serious slap in the face. No, not a slap in the face, it reaches well beyond that. Maybe back to the beginning of time and stretch to the bounds of the universe. Carson Posted June 27, 2007 8:52 AM