A Focus on Border Security and Temporary Visas as Senators Return to Immigration

The Senate Judiciary Committee continued to plow through amendments to an immigration overhaul bill on Tuesday, revisiting border security provisions before moving on to measures related to temporary guest worker programs.

Here is a look at some of the more interesting and important amendments offered, and how they fared in committee:

- SESSIONS 4, Requiring the use of a biometric entry and exit data system at ports of entry â€" Failed 6-12

Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, offered an amendment that would have required the implementation of a biometric entry and exit system before anyone could apply for legal status.

“The reason is very simple â€" at most seaports and airports, you clock in with a system, but it’s biographic, which is easily forgeable and not secure,” Mr. Sessions said. “This is one reason the American people have so little confidence in the promises we make.”

Democrats on the committee agreed with Mr. Sessions in broad theory â€" that a biometric identification system would be effective â€" but said that the logistics and cost concerns were prohibitive and that tying the legal status of undocumented workers to getting such a system up and running could delay that status indefinitely.

“We would all concede that the biometric approach is a more sophisticated and perhaps a better approach,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and a member of the bipartisan group that drafted the legislation. But, he said, Mr. Sessions’s measure was “not attainable, not affordable.”

The two Republican members of the bipartisan group who serve on the committee â€" Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina â€" joined with their Democratic colleagues to defeat the amendment.

- SESSIONS 1, Limiting the number of nonimmigrant aliens who can work in the United States â€" Failed 1-17

Mr. Sessions also offered an amendment that would have restricted the future flow of legal immigrants, effectively limiting the number of immigrants and foreign workers to 33 million over a 10-year period and the total number of green cards to 1.2 million a year.

The measure failed, 1 to 17, with only Mr. Sessions voting for his amendment.

- GRASSLEY 58, Requiring additional information in Internet job postings for H-1B eligible jobs â€" Passed by voice vote

Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the committee, introduced an amendment that would require employers to post additional information about open positions online before filling a slot with a worker hired on an H-1B visa â€" a visa reserved for high-skilled workers. The measure passed with a voice vote.

- HATCH 9, Increase the labor certification fee for an employment-based visa â€" Passed by voice vote

Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, offered an amendment that would increase the labor certification fee for an employment-based visa to $1,000 from $500, and put that money in a new fund that would go toward education in the STEM â€" science, technology, engineering and math â€" fields.

“This bipartisan amendment makes sense,” Mr. Hatch said. “It addresses the long-term need to invest in American STEM education.”

Mr. Hatch is considered a Republican who could be persuaded to vote yes on the legislation, provided the committee votes for some of his high-tech provisions, and this amendment passed with a voice vote.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, hailed the bipartisan spirit of Tuesday’s markup in an e-mailed statement that referred to Mr. Hatch’s and Mr. Grassley’s amendments.

“These bipartisan amendments are good-faith improvements to the bill,” Mr. Schumer said. “This is as open a process as any I’ve seen since entering the Senate, and it is making for a better bill.”

But not everyone in Congress was pleased with the direction of the debate.

As the Senate committee considered various provisions in earnest, Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, led a news conference in front of the Capitol, rallying fellow House Republicans who, like him, are opposed to the broad immigration overhaul currently making its way through the Senate.

Mr. King, long an opponent of President Obama’s health care plan, said that if forced to choose between accepting the Affordable Care Act or the Senate’s immigration bill, which he called “amnesty,” he would choose the health care law. “Here’s how bad this is,” he said. “You all know how badly I despise Obamacare.”

“I would take Obamacare and try to live with that before I’d ever accept this amnesty plan,” Mr. King said. “Because the amnesty plan is far, far worse than Obamacare. That genie cannot be put back in the bottle. We can repeal Obamacare, we can overtime pay for it, we can overtime get back our doctor-patient relationship. But if this amnesty goes through, there’s no undoing it. The genie of the left will have escaped from the bottle, and he will be as amorphous as a puff of smoke.”