U.S. Senator Kay Hagan was among the supporters helping to pass an immigration reform plan proposed by a bipartisan group of her colleagues. The Senate voted 68-32 in favor of the bill introduced by the Senate's so-called 'Gang of Eight' as a way to provide a path to citizenship for more than 11 million people who entered the country illegally.
Hagan says she spoke with many North Carolinians who urged her to support the bill and said it will benefit the nation on several fronts.
"It's going to secure our borders," Hagan says. "It's going to boost our economy. It's going to fix the immigration system so that everyone plays by the same rules, and it's going to reduce our deficit in the U.S. by $160 billion over the first ten years and then it's shown to have a savings of $700 billion in the following decade."
U.S. Senator Richard Burr's cast a "no" vote on the bill during Thursday's roll call tally. He said on Twitter earlier this week that the legislation did not do enough to secure the nation's borders:
Any effort to deal w/ illegal immigration must secure the border -- Corker-Hoeven amendment and current bill do not achieve this goal.
— Richard Burr (@SenatorBurr) June 24, 2013
The bill now goes to the U.S. House.
