Immigration Agreement Reached

Senate negotiators reached agreement on immigration legislation, which provides a path to citizenship for 12 million illegal aliens.

As I posted here, it is not yet clear that the agreement will manage to slow illegal immigration anymore that did the failed 1986 Immigration Reform Act.

It is not encouraging that the world's greatest deliberative body will be given the 1,000 page text of the immigration bill late Friday, and Senators are expected to vote on the bill Monday. Weeks after the Senate passed the 850-page Senate immigration reform bill last year, House Republicans were finding unheralded features in that Senate bill such as these beauties:

Illegal aliens allowed to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal work.

The U.S. Required to consult with Mexican officials before commencement of any fence construction along the border.

Discounted in-state tuition rates at state colleges and universities for illegal aliens who reside in those states. Meanwhile, legal immigrants and citizens who reside outside that state must still pay the full price.

Complete amnesty for employers who have illegally hired the millions of aliens and provided the magnet that drew them here in the first place.

A path to citizenship to illegals who have snuck across the border, counterfeited documentation, committed Social Security fraud and cheated on taxes.

Even more discouraging are the talking points Hugh Hewitt published earlier today. Hewitt refers to the talking points as "four pages of crap." If the Senators recent agreement was truly "reform," could not the agreement withstand a meaningful deliberation? The fact that the Senate is rushing to vote on it too quickly, with only a farcical debate that can not pass a simple smell test can only lead to one conclusion.

UPDATE: RedState has learned that the Senates 1,000-page Immigration "Reform" bill was released to members of the Senate this afternoon. A Cloture vote is scheduled for Monday. If passed, the floor debate will be cut off after 30 hours of additional debate time.

UPDATE II There is no immigration bill:

Multiple Senate sources confirmed that, despite Senator Kennedy and others’ original statements, as of 10:00 PM eastern daylight time Thursday night, “no bill presently exists and probably won't until tomorrow at the earliest” because “the lawyers are still behind closed doors putting it together.” Senate sources also confirmed that “the bill probably will not be online [and available to the public] in its final form until after the Senate has voted on it.” Furthermore, even Senators involved in the process itself offered contradictory reports on its contents. For example, at the same time that John Kyl (R-AZ) was on one news channel praising the bill’s elimination of chain migration – a key provision he himself had championed – Reid was telling another network that that provision would not be in the bill’s final draft.