• By
  • Corey Boles

WASHINGTON—Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), the No. 2 ranking Senate Republican, said Tuesday that if Democrats remain unwilling to strengthen the border-security provisions in the immigration bill, the effort to overhaul the country’s immigration laws could “quickly fall apart”.

Mr. Cornyn, the minority whip, is the author of a provision that would seek to strengthen the border security aspects of the bill. He said that he hoped Democrats would be willing to look at his measure that would peg the transition of the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country to legal residency to stronger border provisions.

Mr. Cornyn was speaking to reporters after a press conference with his fellow Senate GOP leaders.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said that he believed the immigration bill would garner the necessary 60 votes “today, tomorrow or next week” as it is currently drafted, the likely amount needed to overcome a Republican filibuster on the legislation.

He said that he hoped to have more votes on amendments, but that “tea-party” elements of the Republican party were blocking more floor votes.  Mr. Reid was speaking to reporters at a weekly press conference after a closed door meeting with his Senate Democratic colleagues.

Mr. Reid’s GOP counterpart, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), said that he too hoped there would be more votes on amendments.

The Senate is set to hold votes on four amendments later Tuesday afternoon, after which lawmakers will have only processed five amendments since the immigration debate began more than a week ago.

Mr. Reid declined to comment on remarks made earlier by House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) that he wouldn’t bring an immigration bill to the House floor unless it had the support of a majority of GOP lawmakers there.

The Senate Democratic leader said that he wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on in the House.

“There’s going to be significant pressure on the House to do something on immigration,” said Mr. Reid.



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