Senators relaunch bipartisan immigration discussions

A bipartisan group of senators has resumed efforts to revise the U.S. immigration system, following years of failed attempts to pass legislation on the politically divisive topic.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Richard J. Durbin of Illinois met with panel members Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, on Thursday morning to discuss which immigration bills could garner 60 votes, the minimum needed to overcome a filibuster in the evenly divided Senate.

The senators said they discussed several topics, such as changes for migrant farmworkers critical to the U.S. economy and changes for foreign workers stuck in a yearslong green card backlog, as well as for their children who grew up on legal visas but “aged out” before their parents’ green cards became available.

It was the first in what will likely be a “series of ongoing meetings,” Tillis said.

The push comes less than a year after Democrats attempted to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants through a party-line reconciliation bill but were thwarted by internal divisions and a Senate advisor’s rulings barring the inclusion of immigration provisions.