A compromise bipartisan plan to overhaul US immigration law failed today on its first test vote in a sharply divided Senate.
Just a day after leaders from both parties agreed to the plan and predicted it would be widely embraced, new bickering shelved the measure amid complaints it would give amnesty to immigrants who illegally entered the country.
An estimated seven million illegal immigrants who have been in the US for more than five years would have been able to stay and earn citizenship under the plan.
The proposal had been welcomed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern who said he hoped it would allow Irish illegal immigrants who have been in the US for more than five years a chance to become a citizen.
However, backers of the bill fell 22 votes short of the 60 needed in the 100-member Senate to overcome procedural hurdles and move the bill forward.
The Senate action complicates and could ultimately doom efforts to pass comprehensive reform legislation in this election year.
The deal had been struck in the face of opposition by some Republicans who said a plan to give some of the 11 million illegal immigrants a path to US citizenship was amnesty and would reward them for breaking US immigration laws.
Both sides blamed each other for the stalemate.
"A lot of people are asking what happened between the optimism of yesterday morning ... and this morning where it looks like everything has been obstructed, stonewalled," said Senate Majority Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican.
"This is no place for stonewalling or obstruction," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "Yet that's where we are."
Lawmakers planned to leave Friday for a two-week break and it was unclear when the Senate would return to the legislation.