US Senate Rejects Immigration Bills, Leaves 'Dreamers' future in Limbo

Washington: The US Senate rejected a series of bills to protect "Dreamer" immigrants on Thursday, leaving in limbo the future of 1.8 million young adults brought to the US illegally as children.

The Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to move forward on four separate proposals, including one backed by US President Donald Trump and a separate bipartisan bill that had been the most likely to win approval in the deeply divided Senate.

Trump helped defeat the bipartisan bill, which went down in a 54-45 vote, by labeling it just hours earlier as "a total



catastrophe."

He instead backed a Republican plan that would offer Dreamers a path to citizenship but also commit funding to build a wall on the US border with Mexico and impose much tougher restrictions on legal immigration

In a blow to the Republican president, 14 senators from his own party opposed that bill, which failed by an emphatic 60-39 vote.

The Senate votes were the latest in a series of failures in Congress in recent years to pass a comprehensive immigration plan, and left lawmakers and immigration advocates searching for a way forward for the young Dreamers.