Key amendments rejected would have:

•Eliminated the path to citizenship that the bill offers an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. The Senate rejected the amendment, by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., 56-41.

•Required all adult illegal immigrants to return to their home countries to apply for legal status. The vote was 53-40 against the amendment by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

•Enabled relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents to earn additional points under a new merit-based immigration system. The bill heavily favors work experience and job skills. The amendment by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. , failed 55-40.

•Required illegal immigrants to prove they have resided in the USA for four years in order to qualify for legalization. The bill makes all those in the country as of Jan. 1, 2007, eligible to become legal residents. The amendment by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., was rejected, 79-18.

By Kathy Kiely

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Have a question about immigration? Send a message to USA TODAY's Kathy Kiely. For more Capitol Hill "news that doesn't fit in print," read her blog.
By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said earlier this month that the immigration issue has replaced Social Security as the "third rail" of politics — an issue that's so incendiary most politicians are afraid to touch it.

Now, both have been joined.

One of the biggest political flashpoints in the immigration debate involves the question of what the government should do with Social Security taxes it collects from people who work here illegally.

In 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, the Social Security Administration collected $8 billion in payroll taxes that were deposited into a "suspense fund," said spokesman Mark Lassiter, because the names and Social Security numbers didn't match government records. Social Security Administration's inspector general, Patrick O'Carroll, told Congress last year that he believes illegal workers are the source of much of the unclaimed cash.

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Some workers could become eligible to collect those benefits under a Senate bill that would grant a chance at citizenship to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Shannon Benton of the Senior Citizens League, a group representing retirees, told a House of Representatives subcommittee last week that the bill "will result in significant damage to the already strained Social Security trust fund." According to her group's calculations, Benton said, the total cost could be $966 billion by 2040.

That estimate is "wildly at odds" with the Social Security Administration's estimates, said Lassiter. He argued that "immigration is a net plus for Social Security," because of the taxes the newcomers pay into the trust fund's coffers.

Suspicions about the potential cost of legalizing illegal workers have been fueled, however, by the government's reluctance to unveil details of an agreement worked out with Mexico to provide reciprocal retirement credits for people who work in both Mexico and the USA. Benton said the Senior Citizen's League had to go to court to get a copy of the agreement.

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Similar deals have been struck with 21 countries to prevent workers and their employers from double taxation. The Mexico deal, signed in 2004, has never been presented to Congress and has never taken effect.

Lassiter said it's because the Mexican government never responded to a diplomatic note clarifying that the deal does not apply to illegal Mexican workers.

The Social Security Administration insists the cost of a reciprocal deal with Mexico will be negligible, but federal auditors in the Government Accountability Office disagree. A 2003 GAO report said cost estimates of the reciprocal retirement deal with Mexico are "highly uncertain" because of the possibility that Congress will legalize a large number of Mexicans now working illegally in the USA.

Last year, candidates in at least 29 congressional campaigns accused their opponents of supporting Social Security benefits for illegal immigrants, according to FactCheck.org, a non-partisan watchdog group that monitors political advertisements. "It didn't matter that the ads were false," said Cecilia Munoz, vice president of National Council for La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic organization. "They were effective."

STORY: To stay, immigrants would have to leave

Munoz thinks the 2006 ad campaign — and the possibility of a repeat in next year's congressional elections — is the chief reason Democratic and Republican sponsors of the Senate immigration bill included provisions to bar people with fraudulent Social Security cards after 2004 from qualifying for Social Security benefits.

The sponsors accepted an amendment by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, that also bans non-citizens with legitimate Social Security numbers — but no authorization to work — from receiving Social Security benefits. Most are people who came to the USA on a visa but overstayed their time.

The limits the immigration bill puts on Social Security claims from illegal workers affect only those who obtained their Social Security cards after 2004. Critics, including Benton and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., argue that many illegal immigrants still could be eligible to claim Social Security benefits under the Senate bill.

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Immigrant rights advocates argue that illegal immigrants who later earn legal status in the USA should be able to claim Social Security benefits they earned by paying into the trust fund. Stripping them of their retirement checks "is tantamount to stealing," Munoz said.

She accused Democrats of not being willing to fight for the workers' rights. "They don't want to vote on it," she said.