Senate parliamentarian likely dooms plan to legalize immigrants through budget bill

The Senate parliamentarian on Sunday ruled against a plan to legalize immigrants living in the U.S. without legal permission through a budget bill, dealing a significant, if not fatal, blow to an effort Democrats viewed as their best chance to place millions on a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

In a ruling obtained by CBS News, Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate parliamentarian, called the plan to make an estimated 8 million undocumented immigrants eligible for green cards "a broad, new immigration policy" that could not be included in the budget reconciliation process, a procedure that can be used to pass budget bills with a simple majority of senators.

MacDonough's ruling is a crushing setback for immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers, who hoped to use the budget reconciliation process to create a massive legalization program for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, farmworkers and other coronavirus-era essential workers.