According to an AP article, "President Bush's immigration plan to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants while fortifying the border collapsed in the Senate on Thursday, crushing both parties' hopes of addressing the volatile issue before the 2008 elections."

President Bush had high hopes for the law and many party officials on each side were eager to demonstrate that they could "act on a complex issue of great interest to the public."

Although officials say that the issue of immigration is not going to go away anytime soon, lawmakers in both parties comment that further action is unlikely this year. In fact, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who heads the House Judiciary subcommittee that was to write a version of the bill, said the Senate's inability to move forward "effectively ends comprehensive immigration reform efforts" for the next year and a half.

According to the article, Senators had forged an immigration compromise intended to withstand challenges from the left and right. "They advocated the resulting measure as an imperfect but necessary fix to the current system, in which millions of illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the U.S.

"The proposal would have made those millions eligible for lawful status while tightening border security and creating an employee verification system to weed out illegal workers from U.S. jobs.

"The bill also would have set up a temporary worker program and a system to base future legal immigration more heavily on employment criteria, rather than family ties."

In the end, the proposed resolution had little support from conservatives. This came as somewhat of a surprise after just a few weeks ago, President Bush was so confident in the passing of this bill that he was quoted as saying, "I'll see you at the bill-signing."

To read comments from various Senators, as well as additional details of this report, click here.