Senators reject biometric tracking in immigration reform

A traveler uses a biometric scanner at the George H.W. Bush Intercontinental Airport in 2008. (Dave Einsel/Getty …

A bipartisan group of senators voted against adding a biometric system to the sweeping immigration reform bill that would ensure people on tourist, student and other temporary visas leave the country when they are supposed to. The failed amendment was one of the most controversial additions to the bill considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee at Tuesday's hearing.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, backed the amendment that would have required the government to use fingerprints and other biometric data to track visitors when they leave the country at airports and other ports of exit. Democrats, including Sens. Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, argued the system would be too expensive to implement. It was voted down 6-12, with two Republicans joining the 10 Democrats in opposing it. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina who helped draft the original bill, said he opposed the amendment because the government hasn't shown "the will or the desire" to implement the system, and he doubted including it in the bill would change that.

Despite some conservative opposition to the immigration bill, attempts to significantly alter the bill have failed in the committee mark-up process so far.

The current immigration reform bill seeks to legalize most of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country and prevent future illegal immigration though an employment verification system and more border security measures. About 40 percent of the unauthorized immigrants currently in the country entered legally and then overstayed their visas, which Sessions argued raises national security concerns.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress passed a bill mandating that the government institute a biometric tracking system for people on temporary, nonimmigrant visas such as for tourism. Twelve years later, the system still hasn't been implemented due to cost and other complications.

The Department of Homeland Security estimated it would cost up to $6.4 billion to implement a biometric tracking system in the nation's airports, according to a report in USA Today. It's unclear how much it would cost to install similar technology in the country's land ports, where nearly 80 percent of people enter the United States.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said at the hearing that he was concerned that requiring the biometric system would delay the citizenship process for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants who will benefit from the bill. The amendment said none of those immigrants would be able to apply for citizenship before the biometric system was put in place. The current bill lays out a 10-year waiting period for citizenship for the group.

A spokesman for Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida and a member of the "Gang of Eight" that drafted the bill, told The Hill he was "disappointed" with the vote, and that he would try to reintroduce it once senators begin debating the bill on the Senate floor.

Another rejected amendment, introduced by Sessions on Tuesday, sought to significantly reduce future legal immigration. Sessions argued it would help the American economy to keep legal immigration numbers down. All of Sessions' colleagues on the committee, Republican and Democrat, voted against the measure.

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All about immigration: Green cards? Citizenship?

WASHINGTON (AP) — This may be the year Congress decides what to do about the millions of immigrants living illegally in the U.S. After years of gridlock, there are ideas whizzing all around Washington.

For now, all eyes are on an 844-page Senate proposal with the you-said-a-mouthful title of the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013."

Look for the Senate Judiciary Committee to take its first votes on the legislation on Thursday.

What's in that bill? Is there a Plan B? And who are all these immigrants, once you get past the big round numbers?

A big dose of facts, figures and other information to help understand the current debate:

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WHY NOW?

Major problems with U.S. immigration have been around for decades.

President George W. Bush tried to change the system and failed. President Barack Obama promised to overhaul it in his first term but never did.

In Obama's second term, he's making immigration a priority, and Republicans also appear ready to deal.

Why the new commitment?

Obama won 71 percent of Hispanic voters in his 2012 re-election campaign, and he owes them. Last year's election also sent a loud message to Republicans that they can't ignore this pivotal voting bloc.

It's been the kind of breathtaking turnaround you rarely see in politics. Plus, there's growing pressure from business leaders, who want to make it easier for the U.S. to attract highly educated immigrants and to legally bring in more lower-skilled workers such as farm laborers.

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WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Talk about "comprehensive immigration reform" generally centers on four main questions:

—What to do about the 11 million-plus immigrants who live in the U.S. without legal permission.

—How to tighten border security.

—How to keep businesses from employing people who are in the U.S. illegally.

—How to improve the legal immigration system, now so convoluted that the adjective "Byzantine" pops up all too frequently.

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WHAT'S THE GANG OF EIGHT?

A group of four Democrats and four Republicans in the Senate that crafted a bill to address all four questions. In a nutshell, this proposal would tighten border controls, allow more high- and low-skilled workers to legally immigrate, require employers to verify their workers have legal status, and create an opportunity for those who are in the U.S. illegally to eventually become citizens.

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IS THERE A PLAN B?

And C and D.

Obama has his own backup plan in case congressional talks fail, but he's given his support to the Senate bill as a worthy compromise.

In the House, Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the head of the House Judiciary Committee, says his committee will tackle the main immigration issues one by one, instead of starting with a single sweeping bill.

Separately, there's a bipartisan House group working on legislation.

Obama says he will keep an open mind about the various proposals, but the final deal has to address all the big issues.

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COMING TO AMERICA

A record 40.4 million immigrants live in the U.S., representing 13 percent of the population. More than 18 million are naturalized citizens, 11 million are legal permanent or temporary residents, and more than 11 million are in the country without legal permission, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a private research organization.

Those in the U.S. illegally made up about 3.7 percent of the U.S. population in 2010. While overall immigration has steadily grown, the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally peaked at 12 million in 2007.

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WHERE FROM?

Twenty-nine percent of the foreign-born in the U.S., or about 11.7 million people, came from Mexico. About 25 percent came from South and East Asia, 9 percent from the Caribbean, 8 percent from Central America, 7 percent South America, 4 percent the Middle East and the rest from elsewhere.

The figures are more lopsided for immigrants living here illegally: An estimated 58 percent are from Mexico. The next closest figure is 6 percent from El Salvador, says the government.

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WHERE TO?

California has the largest share of the U.S. immigrant population, 27 percent, followed by New York, New Jersey, Florida, Nevada, Hawaii and Texas, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a private group focused on global immigration issues.

California has the largest share of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, at 25 percent, followed by Texas with 16 percent. Florida and New York each has 6 percent, and Georgia has 5 percent, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

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GETTING IN

Here's one way to think about the ways immigrants arrive in the U.S: Some come in the front door, others the side door and still others the back door, as laid out in a report from the private Population Reference Bureau.

—Arriving through the front door: people legally sponsored by their families or employers. Also refugees and asylum-seekers, and immigrants who win visas in an annual "diversity" lottery.

—Side door: legal temporary arrivals, including those who get visas to visit, work or study. There are dozens of types of nonimmigrant visas, available to people ranging from business visitors to foreign athletes and entertainers. Visitors from dozens of countries don't even need visas.

—Back door: Somewhat more than half of those in the U.S. illegally have come in the back door, evading border controls, Pew estimates. The rest legally entered, but didn't leave when they were supposed to or otherwise violated terms of their visas.

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IS IT A CRIME?

Simply being in the United States in violation of immigration laws isn't, by itself, a crime; it's a civil violation.

Entering the country without permission is a misdemeanor criminal offense. Re-entering the country without authorization after being formally removed can be felony.

Pew estimates that a little less than half of immigrants who lack legal permission to live in the U.S. didn't enter the country illegally. They overstayed their visas, worked without authorization, dropped out of school or otherwise violated the conditions of their visas.

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WHAT'S IN A NAME?

There are varying and strong opinions about how best to refer to the 11 million-plus people who are in the U.S. without legal permission.

Illegal immigrants?

Undocumented workers?

Unauthorized population?

Illegal aliens?

The last has generally fallen out of favor. Some immigrant advocates are pressing a "Drop the I-Word" campaign, arguing that it is dehumanizing to refer to people as "illegal."

"Undocumented worker" often isn't accurate because many aren't workers, and some have documents from other countries. Homeland Security reports refer to "unauthorized immigrants," but the agency also reports statistics on "aliens apprehended."

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DEFINITIONS, PLEASE:

—Legal permanent residents (LPRs): people who have permission to live in the U.S. permanently but aren't citizens. They're also known as "green card" holders. Most of them can apply for citizenship within five years of getting green cards. In 2011, 1.06 million people got the cards.

—Refugees and asylees: people who come to the U.S. to avoid persecution in their home countries. What's the difference between the two terms? Refugees are people who apply for protective status before they get to the U.S. Asylees are people who apply upon arrival in the U.S. or later.

—Naturalization: The process by which immigrants become U.S. citizens.

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GOING GREEN

Is there an actual green card? Indeed there is.

It's the Permanent Resident Card issued to people who are authorized to live and work in the U.S. on a permanent basis. In 2010, the government redesigned them to add new security features — and make them green again.

The cards had been a variety of colors over the years. New green cards are good for 10 years for lawful permanent residents and two years for conditional residents.

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PATH TO CITIZENSHIP

There's a lot of talk about creating a "path to citizenship" for immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal status.

But there's vigorous debate over what conditions these immigrants should have to satisfy to get citizenship — among them are paying taxes, fines and fees, and passing background checks.

Some legislators want to set additional conditions, such as improvements in border security and in tracking whether legal immigrants leave the country when required. Others want to limit immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally to some sort of legal status that stops short of citizenship.

But more than 60 percent of Americans think those who are here illegally should have a way to become citizens, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in April.

The Senate bill would allow those in the country illegally to obtain "registered provisional immigrant" status six months after the bill was enacted if they met certain conditions.

Additional border security improvements would have to go into place before anyone obtained green cards or citizenship.

It would take immigrants living here illegally at least 13 years to get all the way to citizenship. They'd have to pay taxes, fees and $2,000 in fines. No one who entered the country after Dec. 31, 2011, or had a felony conviction or more than three misdemeanors would be eligible.

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THE A-WORD

Nothing stirs up a hornet's nest like talk of amnesty for immigrants who are in the country illegally, although there's a lot of disagreement over how to define the term.

A 2007 effort to overhaul the immigration system, led by Bush, failed in part because Republicans were dismayed that it included a process to give otherwise law-abiding immigrants who were in the country illegally a chance to become citizens. Critics complained that would be offering amnesty.

All sides know it's not practical to talk about sending 11 million-plus people back to their countries of origin. So one big challenge this time is finding an acceptable way to resolve the status of those who are in the country illegally.

Backers of the Senate bill stress that those who are in the country illegally would have a longer and more difficult path to citizenship under their plan than would immigrants who followed all the rules.

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GETTING A REPRIEVE

While the larger immigration debate goes on, the government already is offering as many as 1.76 million immigrants who are in the country illegally a way to avoid deportation, at least for now.

Obama announced a program in June that puts off deportation for many people brought here as children. Applicants for the reprieve must have arrived before they turned 16, be younger than 31 now, be high school graduates or in school, or have served in the military. They can't have a serious criminal record or pose a threat to public safety or national security.

Applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are averaging more than 3,000 a day. By mid-April, nearly 489,000 people had applied and more than 268,000 had been approved, with most of the rest still under consideration.

Applications have come from all 50 states, with the largest number coming from California and Texas. Nearly 75 percent of the applicants are originally from Mexico.

In some ways, the program closely tracks the failed DREAM Act, which would have given many young illegal immigrants a path to legal status. Obama's program doesn't give them legal status but it at least protects them from deportation for two years.

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HISTORY: DOING THE WAVE

The U.S. is in its fourth and largest immigration wave.

First came the Colonial era, then an 1820-1870 influx of newcomers mostly from Northern and Western Europe. Most were Germans and Irish, but the gold rush and jobs on the transcontinental railroad also attracted Chinese immigrants.

In the 1870s, immigration declined due to economic problems and restrictive legislation.

The third wave, between 1881 and 1920, brought more than 23 million people to the U.S., mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, aided by cheaper trans-Atlantic travel and lured by employers seeking workers.

Then came the Great Depression and more restrictive immigration laws, and immigration went into decline for decades.

The fourth wave, still underway, began in 1965 with the end of immigration limits based on nationality. Foreign-born people made up 1 in 20 residents of the U.S. in 1960; today, the figure is about 1 in 8.

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HISTORY: HERE A LAW, THERE A LAW

Until the late 1800s, immigration was largely a free for all. Then came country-by-country limits. Since then, big changes in U.S. immigration law have helped produce big shifts in migration patterns.

Among the more notable laws:

—1965 Immigration and Nationality Act: Abolished country-by-country limits, established a new system that determined immigration preference based on family relationships and needed skills, and expanded the categories of family members who could enter without numerical limits.

—1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act: Legalized about 2.7 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, 84 percent of them from Mexico and Central America.

—1990 Immigration Act: Increased worldwide immigration limit to a "flexible cap" of 675,000 a year. The number can go higher in some years if there are unused visas available from the previous year.

—1996 Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Expanded possible reasons for deporting people or ruling them ineligible to enter the U.S., expedited removal procedures, gave state and local police power to enforce immigration laws.

—Post-2001: In 2001, talk percolated about a new immigration plan to deal with unauthorized immigrants, guest workers and violence along the Mexican border. But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 put an end to that, amid growing unease over illegal immigration.

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ABOUT LAST TIME. ...

The last big immigration legalization plan, in 1986, took six years to get done.

The law, signed by President Ronald Reagan, had three main components: making it illegal to hire unauthorized workers, improving border enforcement and providing for the legalization of a big chunk of the estimated 3 million to 5 million immigrants then in the country illegally.

The results were disappointing on two central fronts: The hiring crackdown largely failed because there was no good way to verify eligibility to work, and it took a decade to improve border security. As a result, illegal immigration continued to grow, fueled by the strong U.S. economy.

What did work as intended: Close to 3 million immigrants living in the U.S. without permission received legal status. By 2009, about 40 percent of them had been naturalized, according to Homeland Security.

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LATINOS RISING

Census figures show that between 1960 and 2010, immigration from Europe declined while the numbers coming from Latin America and Asia took off. As the immigrants' points of origin changed, so did their destinations. Concentrations shifted from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West.

A few Census Bureau snapshots:

—In 1960, there were fewer than 1 million people in the U.S. who were born in Latin America. By 2010, there were 21.2 million.

—In 1960, 75 percent of foreigners in the U.S. came from Europe. By 2010, 80 percent came from Latin America and Asia.

—In 1960: 47 percent of the foreign-born lived in the Northeast and 10 percent in the South. By 2010, 22 percent lived in the Northeast and 32 percent in the South.

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THE FENCE

The fence between the U.S. and Mexico runs off and on for 651 miles along the 1,954-mile border. Most of it has been built since 2005. At some points, it's an 18-foot-high steel mesh structure topped with razor wire. At others, it's a rusting, 8-foot-high thing, made of Army surplus landing mats from the Vietnam War.

The fencing is one of the more visible manifestations of a massive effort over the past two decades to improve border security. The results of that effort are dramatic. Those images of crowds of immigrants sprinting across the border illegally while agents scramble to nab a few are largely a thing of the past.

Two decades ago, fewer than 4,000 Border Patrol agents worked along the Southwest border. Today there are 18,500.

Plummeting apprehension statistics are one measure of change: 357,000 last year, compared with 1.6 million in 2000. The numbers are down in part because fewer are trying to make it across.

The border isn't sealed but it is certainly more secure.

The Senate bill would require the government to have even tougher border security plans before those who are in the country illegally could become legal permanent residents.

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WHO'S HANGING AROUND

With tighter border security and years of economic difficulty in the U.S., it turns out that most of the immigrants who are in the U.S. without permission have been there for a while. Just 14 percent have arrived since the start of 2005, according to Homeland Security estimates. In contrast, 29 percent came during the previous five years.

At the peak in 2000, about 770,000 immigrants arrived annually from Mexico, most of them entering the country illegally. By 2010, the pace had dropped to about 140,000, most of them arriving as legal immigrants, according to Pew.

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WHO'S LEAVING?

Mexicans, mostly. Since 1986, more than 4 million noncitizens have been deported. Deportations have expanded in the Obama administration, reaching 410,000 in 2012 from 30,000 in 1990. Most of those deported — 75 percent — are sent back to Mexico. Nearly half of those removed had prior criminal convictions. So far, the Obama administration has deported more than 1.6 million people.

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TO NATURALIZE OR NOT

Lots of U.S. immigrants who are eligible to become naturalized citizens don't bother. As of 2010, about two-thirds of eligible immigrants had applied for citizenship, according to the Migration Policy Institute. That lags behind the rate in other English-speaking countries such as Australia and Canada, which do more to promote naturalization.

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WHY BOTHER?

What's so great about citizenship?

Naturalization offers all sorts of rights and benefits, including the right to vote and run for office. Naturalized citizens are protected from losing their residency rights and being deported if they get in legal trouble. They can bring family members into the U.S. more quickly.

Certain government jobs and licensed professions require citizenship. Citizenship also symbolizes full membership in U.S. society.

In 2010, there was a 67 percent earnings gap between naturalized citizens and noncitizen immigrants, according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute. Even after stripping out differences in education, language skills and work experience, naturalized citizens earned at least 5 percent more.

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SKIPPING IT

Nearly two-thirds of the 5.4 million legal immigrants from Mexico who are eligible to become U.S. citizens haven't done so, according to a Pew study released in February. Their rate of naturalization is half that of legal immigrants from all other countries combined. The barriers to naturalization cited by Mexican nonapplicants include the need to learn English, the difficulty of the citizenship exam and the $680 application fee.

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WORKERS

How do immigrants who are in the U.S. without permission fit into the nation's jobs picture?

In 2010, about 8 million were working in the U.S. or trying to get work. They made up about 5 percent of the labor force, according to Pew. Among U.S. farm workers, about half are believed to be in the country illegally, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Business groups want a system to legally bring in both more highly skilled workers and more lower-skilled workers such as agricultural laborers. The idea is to hire more when Americans aren't available to fill jobs. This has been a sticking point in past attempts at immigration overhaul. Labor groups want any such revamped system to provide worker protections and guard against displacing American workers. Current temporary worker programs are cumbersome and outdated.

The Senate bill would establish a agriculture worker visa system and create more visa programs for high- and low-skilled workers. Farm workers already here illegally would be able to qualify for green cards after five years if they'd already worked in agriculture in the U.S. for two years and if they kept working in the industry.

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EMPLOYERS

Current law requires employers to have their workers fill out a form that declares them authorized to work in the U.S. Then the employer needs to verify that the worker's identifying documents look real. But the law allows lots of different documents, and many of them are easy to counterfeit.

The government has developed a mostly voluntary employment verification system called E-Verify, which has gradually gotten better. But so far just 10 percent of employers are using it, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The system is now required in varying degrees by 19 states.

The Senate proposal would require all employers to implement it within four years.

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FAMILIES VS. JOBS

A big question in the immigration debate centers on how much priority to give to the family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

Under current law, the U.S. awards a much larger proportion of green cards to family members than to foreigners with job prospects here. About two-thirds of permanent legal immigration to the U.S. is family-based, compared with about 15 percent that is employment-based, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The rest is largely humanitarian.

Some policymakers think employment-based immigration should be boosted to help the economy. Advocates for families want to make sure any such action doesn't come at the expense of people seeking to join relatives in the U.S.

The Senate plan would prevent citizens from bringing in siblings and would allow them to sponsor married sons and daughters only if the children were under 31. It would raise the cap on visas for high-skilled workers, create a startup visa for foreign entrepreneurs, and set up a new merit visa that would award points to prospective immigrants based on their education, employment, length of residence in the U.S. and other factors.

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WHO CARES?

For all the attention being devoted to immigration right now, it's not the top priority for most people, even for most Hispanics. It ranked 17th on a list of policy priorities in a recent Pew Research Center poll. Among Hispanics, one-third said immigration was an extremely important issue to them, behind such issues as the economy and jobs, education and health care.

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A VIEW FROM THE SOUTH

Is life actually better in the U.S.? A little more than half of Mexican adults think so, according to a 2012 Pew Global Attitudes poll. Thirty-eight percent said they'd move to the U.S. if they had the chance. Nineteen percent said they'd come even without authorization.

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Sources: Pew Hispanic Center, Migration Policy Institute, Department of Homeland Security, Census Bureau, Government Accountability Office, Population Reference Bureau, Encyclopedia of Immigration.

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Associated Press writers Alicia Caldwell and Erica Werner contributed to this report.

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House Republican offers few assurances on immigration bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two key authors of a bipartisan bill to revamp U.S. immigration laws said on Thursday that they are hopeful most Senate Democrats and Republicans will end up supporting their White House-backed measure.

"It is very doable," Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said of the prospects of attracting such backing. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York agreed.

Speaking at a breakfast roundtable with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, they said their aim is to muster strong support in the Democratic-led Senate to help the measure's chances in the Republican-led House of Representatives.

(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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Obama endorses bipartisan immigration overhaul

By Caren Bohan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday embraced a sweeping overhaul of the nation's immigration system put forward by a bipartisan group of senators, saying it was "largely consistent" with his own principles for immigration reform.

The Democratic president, who had said previously that he would submit his own bill if he was not satisfied with the Senate proposal, urged Congress to "quickly move" the bill forward and pledged to do "whatever it takes" to help.

He spoke after meeting with two of the measure's chief sponsors, Senators John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, and Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York.

Obama's endorsement and the bipartisan support for the bill improves its chances for passage but by no means ensures it.

The four Democrats and four Republicans sponsoring the bill likely face a months-long battle, with the biggest challenge expected in the Republican-led House of Representatives.

Some opposition surfaced Tuesday, even though many House members, including Republican leaders, resolved to stay silent for the day because of the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday.

Republican Representative Lamar Smith of Texas slammed the senators' plan and said it would encourage even more illegal immigration, favor foreign workers and treat illegal immigrants better than those who have played by the rules.

McCain, who lost the 2008 presidential election to Obama, warned that the defeat of any one of the key provisions of the complex legislation could jeopardize the whole effort.

He told reporters that it was "carefully crafted" to keep Republicans, Democrats and different interest groups on board and that if "certain things" were changed, "we would lose one side or the other."

For this and other reasons, Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, another of the bill's sponsors, said the group planned on taking its time with the legislation.

"It's a complicated issue and I think people want to learn more about it," the Cuban-American lawmaker told reporters. "This will be a while. This is not going to be done in a week or quite frankly in a month."

'SERIOUS BORDER SECURITY'

Rubio's comment underscored the delicate construction of the proposal, which would create a new legal status for millions of undocumented immigrants, as urged by immigrant advocacy groups and large segments of the Democratic party.

But to lure Republican support, it conditions a path to permanent legal status - and ultimately a chance for citizenship - on the success of a multibillion-dollar effort to make U.S. borders less porous, using unmanned aerial surveillance, the construction of double and triple lawyers of fencing and the deployment of thousands of additional border patrol officers along with the National Guard.

To get business support, the bill would create a new system of visas for temporary agricultural workers and low-skilled laborers as well as expand the number of specialized, highly-trained foreigners allowed to enter the country to work for technology companies.

To avoid alienating fiscal conservatives in both parties, the proposal denies most federal benefits to the immigrants until they achieve permanent status in the United States, which could take 10 years.

Supporters insist that the bill would not provide an amnesty to illegal immigrants.

The eight senators are trying to pull together broad Republican and Democratic support in hopes that doing so will save the legislation from the fate of failed efforts to comprehensively reform immigration over the past three decades.

That strategy began to pay off Tuesday, even before the bill had been formally introduced.

Conservative anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, was among those who praised the immigration reform effort. He said he would attend a news conference later this week sponsored by the bipartisan group of senators backing the bill.

"They are doing serious border security. They are making sure that the 10 or 11 million who are here without papers can stay and work as long they are not criminals as long as they're working. So you're weeding out bad guys and allowing people who are good and decent and hard-working to be able to stay and work and get in line in questions of citizenship ..."

Rather than being a cost to the country, the bill would be a "boon" to the economy and would save taxpayers money because those with the provisional visas won't be eligible for federal benefits, Norquist said.

The Senate proposal has been embraced by a range of groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO labor organization and immigrants rights activists.

"As a bipartisan product in a time of hyperpartisanship, it's good, strong policy and I think it's also good enough to attract the kind of bipartisan support it needs to pass," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a group that favors immigration reform.

The bill faces a smoother path in the Senate, where it will move first. A bipartisan group in the House has been trying to craft an immigration bill as well, but has yet to produce one.

Representative Raul Labrador, a Republican from Idaho who is backed by the conservative Tea Party movement, cautioned Congress against moving too quickly to change immigration laws.

"You're going to see legislation going through the (House) judiciary committee. It is going to be slow and methodical," Labrador told reporters.

The argument that the new law would be too costly has struck a chord with Tea Party conservatives and could become a central theme of opposition in the House.

(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai, Kim Dixon, Alina Selyukh, Anna Yukhananov and David Lawder in Washington and Nick Carey in Chicago; Editing by Fred Barbash and Paul Simao)

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Lawmakers pitch immigration plan with strong border control

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tighter border security must be one goal of immigration reform if the measure is to pass Congress, lawmakers who support the plan said on Sunday as they tried to build support for a proposal that should be outlined in coming days.

The plan expected later this week envisions toughening border security to discourage new immigrants, while detailing clear steps that aspiring citizens can take if they are already in the country.

Senator Marco Rubio, a leader on immigration reform, said the reform plan will confront the sensitive question of how to treat those who have already entered the country illegally.

"This is not a theory. They are actually here," the Republican said on CBS' Face the Nation, of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Proposals to round up and deport undocumented residents are impractical, Rubio said, and existing immigration rules are being abused.

"What we have in place today is not good for anyone except human traffickers and people who are hiring illegal aliens and paying them less than American workers," he said on Fox News Sunday. "This is an issue that needs to be solved."

Rubio, a Cuban-American, is a leader of the so-called Gang of Eight, which has four Democrat and four Republican senators trying to address concerns of domestic industry, labor and other interests who want a voice in the immigration debate.

The first-term senator from Florida was a guest on several Sunday morning political talk shows pushing the immigration reform message.

"Part of my job is to explain to people what it is we've worked on, try to justify it and hopefully gain their support," Rubio said on CNN's State of the Union.

The immigration proposal could come as soon as Tuesday with details still being finalized, Rubio said, but the plan would put citizenship on hold while officials tighten borders and prepare undocumented workers for the tax rolls.

Lawmakers have different views on how much more border security would be required before undocumented residents could seek citizenship but discouraging future illegal immigration was seen as a key to building broad support for the measure.

"Every Republican at the table said we've got to start with border security," Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and another member of the Gang of Eight said on Fox News Sunday.

The questions of immigration reform and gun control will likely consume the senate in coming weeks and help shape the debate in the U.S. House of Representatives, which would have to pass its own version of reform before any measure could become law.

And while labor and industry groups have blessed a key proposal dealing with itinerant workers, many lawmakers are expected to loudly oppose a plan they say does too little to guarantee public safety.

Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, wants the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to have a direct voice in setting benchmarks for who gets to stay in the country.

"When the Gang of Eight first got together, they said enforcement would come first, before legalization," Sessions said on Sunday. "This proposal will not stand up to scrutiny."

(Reporting By Patrick Rucker; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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Senate negotiators close in on immigration deal

By Charles Abbott and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate negotiators on Tuesday were putting the finishing touches on a bipartisan immigration bill as labor and agriculture groups argued about restrictions on immigrant farmworkers and their pay, lawmakers and officials involved in the negotiations said.

"We're making progress. We're trying to get it done this week," Senator John McCain told reporters.

The Arizona Republican is one of eight Democrats and Republicans in the Senate trying to cobble together a complicated bill that would update immigration laws for the first time since 1986.

In recent weeks, labor unions and the Chamber of Commerce reached tentative agreement on the handling of low-skilled workers from foreign countries who would work as construction laborers, maids and waiters.

That left one big unresolved matter: the rules for bringing foreign farmworkers into the United States to harvest crops, milk cows and work on poultry and cattle operations.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently estimated that of the 1.1 million workers in agriculture, 500,000-700,000 are undocumented.

At a speech this week to agriculture journalists, Vilsack said that assuring a strong labor supply is a matter of importing workers versus importing food. "We risk the possibility of some of the work we do in this country moving to other nations," he said.

The agriculture industry and farmworker groups have been haggling over the cap that would be set under the Senate bill for foreign farm labor, whether those already in the United States would be allowed to stay and pay levels for the temporary workers.

"We want to make sure farmworkers are making at least as much money as they are today, not less," Diana Tellefson Torres, a United Farm Workers vice president, told the North American Agricultural Journalists meeting.

Craig Regelbrugge, co-chair of an agriculture industry coalition, said labor can account for one-third of the cost of production of fruits and vegetables, so wage rates are important. Noting the need for a high cap on farmworker visas compared to other sectors, he said, "what's different about agriculture is it's the nation's food supply."

But some labor groups fear that too many foreign workers would depress U.S. wages or kill some American jobs.

Regelbrugge said there are discussions of a new visa that would run more than 12 months so immigrant laborers do not have to routinely exit the U.S. for brief periods, leaving farms short-handed. While some growers need help only at harvest, dairies and livestock feeders need workers all year.

FAST-TRACK IN SENATE

The linchpin of the immigration bill would end deportation fears for most of the approximately 11 million people who are living in the United States illegally, many from Central America and Asia. The legislation would eventually put many of them on a path to citizenship, if further progress was made in securing the southwestern border with Mexico.

The eight senators outlined their proposal in late January and have been struggling to fill in the details of a bill that could move quickly through the Senate once it is unveiled.

If a bill is introduced by Monday, Senate aides said it could be debated, and possibly amended, in the Senate Judiciary Committee by April 18, with a committee vote by April 25, just before the start of a week-long Senate recess.

Under this accelerated timetable, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would try to schedule a full Senate debate in May.

However, delays are possible at any point in the process.

Republicans, who have opposed any moves to grant citizenship to undocumented residents, began taking an active interest in immigration changes after Hispanic-Americans voted against them in droves in the November 2012 election.

With the 2014 congressional elections around the corner, immigration reform advocates are hoping Congress can handle this issue in 2013, before campaign rhetoric heats up and possibly spoils chances for a bipartisan deal.

Supporters also want a strong, bipartisan showing in the Senate for legislation, which they think will propel it through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where there are more conservatives lawmakers who could reject a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented.

The House might try to pass immigration bills in a piecemeal fashion that could be merged with a Senate-passed bill. Some aides have said the House bill might require a longer wait time than the Senate bill for undocumented residents to earn citizenship - as long as 15 years, versus 10 to 13 years in the Senate bill.

(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Immigration Plan Will Be Ready This Week, Sen. Chuck Schumer Says

WASHINGTON - As the Senate returns from recess this week, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he thinks the bi-partisan Gang of Eight will have its immigration plan completed by the end of the week.

"We hope that we can have a bipartisan agreement among the eight of us on comprehensive immigration reform by the end of the week," Schumer said today on CBS' "Face the Nation." "Over the last two weeks, we've made great progress. There have been kerfuffles along the way, but each one of those, thus far, has been settled."

Schumer said that the staffs of each Gang of Eight member has worked 12 hours a day to fine-tune the details of their immigration plan and reach an agreement on every issue.

In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also a member of the Gang of Eight, set a longer time frame of a "couple of weeks" before the plan is completed.

But one Republican member of the bi-partisan group has expressed concern that the deal on immigration reform is being reached in haste.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has called for more hearings and time to review the plan in order to encourage "healthy public debate."

"Arriving at a final product will require it to be properly submitted for the American people's consideration, through the other 92 senators from 43 states that weren't part of this initial drafting process," Rubio said in a statement last week. "In order to succeed, this process cannot be rushed or done in secret."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., disputed the idea that the plan is being rushed, saying on CBS' "Face the Nation," "I reject this notion that something is being railroaded through. This is the beginning of the process, not the end of it."

Graham defended Rubio, even though questions have been raised about whether he will ultimately agree to a bi-partisan plan.

"Marco Rubio has been a game changer in my party," Graham said. "He will be there only if the Democrats will embrace a guest worker program and a merit-based immigration system to replace the broken one and we'll regain our sovereignty by securing our borders and having control of jobs through E-Verify. Marco will be there."

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Immigration bill expected this week, senators say

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bill to overhaul the immigration system would likely be completed by the end of this week, two senior senators said on Sunday.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York said that senators in the bipartisan "Group of Eight" have resolved all major issues in a pending deal and that their staffs are putting the bill into legislative language.

"All of us have said that they'll be no deal until the eight of us agree to a big, specific bill, but hopefully we can get that done by the end of the week," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation" program.

"There have been kerfuffles along the way, but each one of those thus far has been settled," said Schumer, a member of the group, which has four Democrats and four Republicans.

All eight members must then review the legislative language, he said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest U.S. business group, and the AFL-CIO, the largest labor federation, reached an elusive agreement on a guest-worker program late last month, clearing the way for the writing of a full bill.

The legislation will include an earned pathway to U.S. citizenship for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, bolstered border security and ways for business to meet the need for both high-skilled and low-skilled workers.

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, appearing with Schumer, agreed that a bill would be ready soon and said the legislation would address the needs of both business and labor with a guest-worker program.

"We need to have a path to citizenship, and we need to have secure borders .... And we also have to have a robust guest-worker program so people will not hire someone who is here illegally," McCain said.

A bipartisan group from the Republican-led House of Representatives is working on its own version of immigration reform.

If the Senate and House bills pass their respective chambers, they would have to be reconciled before a final version is voted on and then sent to President Barack Obama for signing into law.

The Gang of Eight in the Democratic-led Senate had initially planned to have a bill by the end of March.

(Writing by Philip Barbara; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Britain's PM Cameron unveils sweeping immigration crackdown

By Andrew Osborn

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron will unveil a sweeping immigration crackdown on Monday aimed at discouraging migrants from Romania and Bulgaria from moving to Britain when EU restrictions on their right to travel and work there expire next year.

Under his plans, access to Britain's National Health Service will be curbed, new migrants will have to wait up to five years for social housing, fines for employers who hire illegal workers will be doubled, and landlords who let to illegal immigrants could face fines too.

The lifting of European Union freedom of movement restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians has triggered warnings in the right-leaning press of "hordes" of welfare-hungry migrants descending on Britain at a time when the economy is stagnant and public resources are being squeezed.

Cameron's initiative reflects a change in the political mainstream after years of politicians shying away from the issue. All three main parties now talk tough on immigration after polls showed it had become one of voters' main worries ahead of a 2015 election and a once derided anti-immigration party surged in the polls.

In a speech that may stir controversy in Romania and Bulgaria, Cameron will say he wants to stop Britain's welfare system being "a soft touch" for migrants, saying that access to core public services is something newcomers should earn rather than automatically receive.

"Net migration needs to come down radically from hundreds of thousands a year to just tens of thousands," he will say, outlining measures that will apply to other EU nationals too.

The UK Independence Party or UKIP, has thrived in the polls after campaigning against "open-door" immigration, humiliating Cameron's ruling Conservative party in a vote for a parliamentary seat three weeks ago.

Cameron is expected to say: "While I have always believed in the benefits of immigration I have also always believed that immigration has to be properly controlled.

"As I have long argued, under the last government this simply wasn't the case. Immigration was far too high and badly out of control."

"SOMETHING FOR NOTHING CULTURE"

He will announce new measures to make it more difficult for nationals from the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes Romania and Bulgaria, to claim welfare benefits after six months. They will take effect in early 2014.

He will also promise to close a loophole that allows some people who have no right to work in Britain to claim benefits and subject newcomers to a much harder test to see if they are eligible for income-related benefits.

"Ending the something for nothing culture needs to apply to immigration as well as welfare. We're going to give migrants from the EEA a very clear message. Just like British citizens, there is no absolute right to unemployment benefit," he will say.

Under the plans, newcomers would also have to wait for up to five years before they could join a waiting list for social housing, and face "stricter charging" to use the health service or be obliged to have private health insurance.

"We should be clear that what we have is a free National Health Service, not a free International Health Service," Cameron will say.

His initiative has already been criticized by David Walker, the Bishop of Dudley, who told The Observer newspaper that politicians were exaggerating the immigration problem and considering "disproportionate" measures.

Last Friday, Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrat party, the junior member of Cameron's coalition, said Britain was considering obliging visitors from "high-risk" countries to hand over a returnable cash bond to deter them from overstaying their visas.

He also abandoned a promise to amnesty illegal immigrants after ten years.

Nigel Farage, the leader of UKIP, said on Saturday that the unexpected success of his own party had shifted the debate on immigration.

"If UKIP had not taken on this immigration debate, the others would not be talking about it at all," he told his party conference.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Tom Tancredo Disavows Rand Paul, Calls Him 'Softer' Than Obama on Immigration

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) regrets his previous endorsement of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), disavowing the former ally because he has "flip-flopped" on immigration.

"Rand Paul began his speech in Spanish and it went downhill from there," Tancredo wrote in an op-ed titled "Why I No Longer Stand with Rand Paul" in the Christian Post. "His speech was filled with virtually every single discredited pro-amnesty cliché you could imagine."

On Tuesday, Paul gave a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington calling for comprehensive immigration reform, including allowing undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States, work legally, and eventually become citizens. Paul, however, never used the word "citizenship" or "pathway to citizenship" in his address.

Tancredo said he even regretted the contribution he gave to Paul's campaign. He actually praised Mitt Romney's "self-deport" stance, saying there are not just two options available: legalization or deporting all 12 million undocumented immigrants.

"The problem is that not one congressman or major commentator has called for deporting all 12 million illegal immigrants," Tancredo wrote. "Rather, we argue that strict enforcement of employer sanctions and allowing local police to cooperate in immigration enforcement will encourage most illegal to, in Mitt Romney's words, 'self-deport.'"

Tancredo, who has spent most of his career calling for stricter immigration enforcement, goes on to write that Paul is "softer" than President Barack Obama on immigration for his proposal.

"Both Obama and the Gang of 8 say that the illegal immigrants must pay a penalty for legal status, while Rand Paul told reporters after his speech he is not 'not as a big a stickler' on these items, because the illegals would not be able to afford the fines," Tancredo said.

Paul's speech this week had a welcoming tone and he peppered his address with Spanish phrases as well as calling Hispanic voters "natural" Republicans, something the RNC also said this week in their "autopsy report," which pledged to open up the party to more Hispanic voters and use more welcoming language. Tancredo doesn't believe it.

"Rand Paul said that the only reason why the GOP is losing the Hispanic vote is because we have turned them off with 'harsh rhetoric over immigration,' Tancredo writes. "Paul doesn't give a single example of what that 'harsh rhetoric' was. Presumably it could have included his pre-flip flop position on immigration."

Tancredo goes on to call Paul a RINO (Republican in Name Only) and "just another politician" saying he doubts "the grassroots conservatives who elected Rand to Senate and whose support he expects if he runs for president in 2016 feel the same."

"When I endorsed Rand Paul, I did not expect to agree with him on every issue," Tancredo wrote. "I respect people with strongly held beliefs regardless of what they are. Most importantly, I felt that I could trust him to maintain his campaign promises. I was wrong. Oh how I long for a Republican leader who exhibits true courage and integrity. That's the stuff leaders are made of."

During his time in Congress, Tancredo tried to establish English as the official national language, as well as many other legislative efforts to try and restrict immigration. He left Congress in 2009 after making a failed bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, where he also focused on immigration.

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Insight: Bipartisan Senate group on path to immigration bill

By Thomas Ferraro

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a Congress riven by partisan conflict on deficits and guns, a circle of eight senators from both parties meeting several times a week might be on the cusp of a major legislative breakthrough.

The so-called Gang of Eight - four Democrats and four Republicans - is completing a plan for the biggest overhaul of immigration laws since 1986. The group is not only holding together after four months of intense discussions - an accomplishment in itself in Washington's brutally partisan atmosphere - it is down to the last sticking points, according to the senators and aides.

The centerpiece, they say, will be a 10- to 15-year path to U.S. citizenship - perhaps under a different formulation - for 11 million illegal immigrants. The issue has gained new urgency for both parties after strong Hispanic support for President Barack Obama and fellow Democrats in last year's election.

In an effort to improve the plan's chances with Republicans, the path to citizenship may wind up being called a road to a green card - the permit issued by the government that allows foreigners to work in the United States and ultimately apply for citizenship.

If so, that would reflect the influence of Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, one of the group's members.

"There is no such thing as a path toward citizenship," Rubio said in an interview. "There is a path toward a green card."

"We want to be generous and we want to be fair, but we also have to be fair to the people trying to do it legally," Rubio said. "To become a citizen, you first have to get a green card. I made that clear" to the others, Rubio said.

Senate aides said they were not worried about what one called "semantics. ... We all agree you need to get a green card before getting citizenship. He is just reflecting concerns in his own party."

The goal is a Senate bill sometime next month, with a Senate vote by June or July. Considering the battles in line ahead of immigration - on deficit reduction and gun violence - that schedule could be optimistic.

There are also plenty of challenges ahead.

The group envisions a commission that would help control the future flow of low-skilled guest workers into the United States in a way that satisfies businesses' need for employees as well as unions' desires to protect their members and U.S. wages.

But satisfying both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO labor organization on how that would work has become a problem.

"It is a tightrope to bring in the workers that are necessary but not at the expense of American workers," Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, one of the eight, said in an interview. "We need to find a reasonable way to thread the needle."

BORDER COMMISSION DEBATED

The group has promised that before there is a pathway to anything, U.S. borders must be declared "secure."

It has been considering a commission composed of elected officials from border states to help the U.S. government make that determination, a prospect that has raised concerns from some Democrats, who fear giving border-state Republicans - they point to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer - an outsized role.

Brewer has clashed with the Obama administration over an Arizona law she signed in 2010 clamping down on illegal immigration.

"The idea is to have local input about the progress we are making on the borders," said Durbin. "But critics fear any one governor could say it is inadequate, denying citizenship to millions."

"We need a way to have local input, but not local veto," Durbin said.

The senators appear to have public opinion on their side.

According to a Public Religion Research Institute poll released on Thursday, 63 percent of Americans said they supported a path to citizenship for undocumented foreigners.

But the path through Congress will not be easy.

Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, was invited to join the group, but declined, for reasons that reflect broader concerns within the Republican Party.

"There were a few things I couldn't agree to," Lee said of the framework the group of eight developed and released in January, which included the pathway to citizenship.

"In trying to address the problem, we shouldn't create another one by giving a special set of legal advantages to illegal aliens," Lee said.

Lee warned that the group may be trying to do too much with one bill. "I'm not convinced that comprehensive" legislation - as opposed to a piecemeal approach - "won't be a problem itself," Lee said.

Lee and five other Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are trying to slow down the immigration bill. In a letter to Democratic Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont on Wednesday, they warned "against rushing a massive bill with far-reaching implications," suggesting a "step-by-step" approach was needed.

It takes 60 votes to get a bill through the Senate, which is composed of 53 Democrats, two independents who vote with Democrats and 45 Republicans.

A BAND AND A BOND

But for some in the group of eight, getting this far in the era of gridlock is hope for the hopeless.

"It is the most productive series of conversations that I have had in four years in the Senate," said Democratic Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, one of the eight lawmakers participating in the discussions. "This is the best opportunity in a generation to pass immigration reform."

"I think comprehensive reform is doable," Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake said, another member of the group. "We wouldn't be in this if we didn't think we could do it."

Some have been down this road before. New York Democrat Chuck Schumer and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, agreed on a comprehensive plan in 2010 only to see it unravel. Senator John McCain of Arizona, working with the late Massachusetts Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy, tried unsuccessfully in 2005 and 2006.

But after the 2012 election in which Democrats won the Hispanic vote nationally by 70 percent, Graham said he sensed a new imperative.

The morning after the election, Graham called Schumer and said, "I want to get the band back together and McCain wants in."

Graham explained in an interview what prompted his call.

Democrats, including Obama, had long promised Hispanics some action on immigration.

"The reality from the Republican point of view is that we had to get this issue resolved," Graham said. "So we Republicans had a need and Democrats had a need," which equaled an "an opportunity to get it done."

Until late last year, Schumer and McCain, who have been in Congress together for three decades, had rarely spoken to each other. The chill between them eased a bit in January when they ended up as a part of a group of lawmakers who reached a deal on new Senate rules to ease gridlock.

"We bonded," said Schumer, "and then moved to immigration."

McCain brought in Durbin, with whom he grew close in 1983 when both were newly elected members of the House of Representatives.

Durbin had made friends with freshman Republican Rubio in predawn workouts in the Senate gym. Durbin invited Rubio.

"I told Marco: 'I think you should be part of this. What do you think?" Durbin recalled. "He said: 'I think I can work with you. At least I'm willing to try.'"

TALKING TO THE HOUSE

The senators have been meeting two to four times a week since December, each session focusing on a mutually agreed-upon agenda. They sit in a circle with 20 staffers behind them, aides said.

"Everyone in there wants to get it done," said Flake. "No one is looking for scoring political points. That makes all the difference."

"There have been hard and tough negotiations, but it has been done all in the spirit of achieving the goal, in which compromise has been made on both sides," said New Jersey's Democratic senator, Robert Menendez, another group member.

A group of eight House members - also four Democrats and four Republicans - began working on its own plan years ago, long before the Senate group even formed.

The emerging and comprehensive House plan, like the one in the Senate, has a proposed path toward citizenship.

Republicans Flake, McCain and Graham recently meet with a number of House Republicans to explain their efforts.

"I don't want to say what their positions were, but they were cordial," said Flake, elected to the Senate in November after 12 years in the House. "They listened."

Flake said he expected the Senate to pass a comprehensive bill while the House approved a limited one. But differences between the two measures could then be worked out, he said.

McCain said he believed "we can convince our House Republican friends - if we can make sure that they are convinced that we have an effective control of the border and it is not amnesty."

McCain said that while he recognized the political and economic advantages of immigration reform, there was a humanitarian need as well, which he said he knew well as an Arizonan.

"Young people have been brought across the border by a coyote (smuggler) and told, 'Tucson is over there,' and have died in the desert," McCain said.

All the members see their immigration effort as a test of whether Congress, when it is divided, can get anything of significance done.

"It could help get Democrats and Republicans to work together," McCain said. "That is what the American people want."

If members as far apart as Schumer and McCain can come together, it will send a message, said Graham.

"If these two guys can deal with an issue as complicated as immigration and wind up with a product good for the country, who knows, good government may break out."

"But," Graham added with a sigh, "I doubt it."

(Editing by Fred Barbash, Mary Milliken and Peter Cooney)

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Prominent Republicans back major immigration reforms

You can blame CNN all you want for its reporters feeling sorry for the now convicted rapists in the ongoing case in Steubenville, Ohio, but MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN all just outed a 16-year-rape victim to millions. Seeking to report on an emotional case for all that it's worth, apparently, all three networks ran this unedited clip from the courtroom video feed, in which one of the defendants responds to Sunday's verdict by apologizing to the Jane Doe victim by name:

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