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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the most ambitious immigration reform package of a generation on Tuesday — one that gives a path to citizenship for thousands of undocumented immigrants who had been living in the shadows.

But to keep a tenuous bipartisan deal in place, there were tradeoffs that nearly scuttled the entire deal, including a measure proposed by Sen. Mazie Hirono to undo changes that eventually would have made it harder for relatives of U.S. residents to join them here.

Hirono, lacking the votes in the committee to undo the changes on family visas in the immigration bill, proposed what appeared to be a mild measure. The siblings and adult married children of U.S. residents could still petition to immigrate in cases of “extreme hardship.”

Mee Moua, President and Executive Director of the Asian American Justice Center, had emphasized Hirono’s amendment was a compromise before the hearing.

“Not just hardship,” she said. “Extreme hardship.”

However, the measure failed out of concern it would tip a balance worked out between Democrats and Republicans.

Meanwhile, in a separate issue also wrapped up in the bill, Filipino veterans who served alongside U.S. troops in World War II took a step toward their longtime goal of being able to more easily bring their children to join them from the Philippines. The panel unanimously adopted an amendment proposed by Hirono that exempts the children of the veterans from annual immigration limits. Because of the limits, the wait for veterans to be reunited with their children has been about 20 years.

“Many of the veterans have had to live their golden years apart from their children,” Hirono said at the hearing.

But what had even more impact was a debate over changing how the U.S. treats family members of residents who want to immigrate. Much of the attention around the historic immigration bill has focused on giving billions of undocumented residents a path to citizenship.

At the hearing Tuesday, many in the audience wore T-shirts with slogans like “Don’t Deport My Mom” or “11 Million Dreams,” a reference to the so-called DREAM Act for undocumented youths who were brought to the U.S. as children. Less noticed are a number of changes to immigration based on family status, an issue of particular importance to Hawaii’s Asian American population.

Under the current system, limits on the number of people allowed to immigrate to the U.S. has led to a decades-long backlog for people waiting to join family members. Under the compromise measure hatched in the Senate, the U.S. would clear the backlog in roughly the next eight years.

But after about eight years, categories that allow siblings and adult married sons and daughters of current residents to petition for citizenship based on those family ties would be eliminated, reducing immigration under those categories. Those family members would still be able to immigrate — albeit with more difficulty — under a merit system that takes into account employment and other factors.

The issue has been an emotional point for Asian-Americans who have argued about the importance of reuniting families. In recent days, immigrant groups have lobbied strongly against the changes to family visa proposed in the bill.

A letter signed by 200 groups and sent to senators said, “We are concerned that some of the proposed changes will undermine our long-held values of family unity…Our legal immigration system is not a zero sum game; it can accommodate these dual values that are important to all Americans.”

On Tuesday, Hirono argued in the committee about the importance of family. Immigrants, she said, “have a better a chance of beng successful if they have a strong family around them… Sometimes the only family a sibling has is a sibling.”

Pointing to the emotion around the issue, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the so-called “Gang of Eight” senators who crafted the package, said he said raised his daughter after his parents died when he was 21.

“I understand the importance of siblings,” he said. By agreeing to fast-track current visa applications for siblings and adult married children, Graham said he felt he compromised.

Moving To Merit-Based Immigration Criteria

A key point in the Republicans’ willingness to go along with reform is the idea of changing the idea of how immigration is allowed in the country. After the backlog is cleared, immigration would be based on a merit system that includes such factors as employability and whether they can speak English, as well as family ties.

Immigration in the future, he said, should be “based on the skills we need. I respect what you’re trying to do,” Graham told Hirono. “But it would upset the balance of what I’m trying to do.

“For us to survive in the future, we’re going to have to welcome people based on our terms, not their terms,” he said.

The passage of Hirono’s amendment, he said, would scuttle the deal. After several Democrats voted against the measure, Hirono’s proposal failed 8-11.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who helped negotiate the package, said, “We sat down and reached an arrangement. We had to give and take. Your heart’s in the right place,” he told Hirono, “But your amendment’s in the wrong place. You can’t put it in our bill.”

Similarly, committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., withdrew a closely-watched amendment that would have given gay spouses immigration rights when Republicans said it would scuttle the deal.

Hirono’s amendment was actually a compromise. Hirono withdrew a separate amendment that would have undone the changes in the family visas in the bill.

As the Senate immigration package moves along, advocacy groups could bring the amendments up for a floor vote. However, with a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority needed to pass the full Senate, the amendments are seen as unlikely to pass unless they are included in the bipartisan proposal passed by the committee. A Hirono spokesman said it was uncertain whether Hirono will bring up her ammendments again on the floor.

Moua, with the Asian American Justice Center, said she had hoped some of the changes could be undone in the House. Immigration reform is expected to be more conservative in the Republican House, but Moua said she’s been told it will leave immigration for adult married children intact.

“We will take note and let it be known that (Asian Americans) are the only ones being left behind in the bill,” she said.

In the House, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa said she would push for immigration changes that help Filipino veterans as well as those reunifying families.

“Congresswoman Hanabusa firmly believes that we can and should deal with the growing backlog of family unification visas without eliminating critical pathways to legal immigration in the future,” a Hanabusa spokesman said.

In a statement after the hearing, Hirono said the bill makes positive changes.

“This immigration reform bill does much to improve family immigration, but I fear that the bill contains some fundamental changes to our immigration system that move us away from the principle of family unification,” she said.

A Major Victory For Filipino Veterans

The Senate bill, however, held better news for Filipino veterans who fought alongside U.S. troops during World War II. The annual limits on immigration have meant the veterans, now in their 80s and 90s, have waited as long as two decades for their children and grandchildren to join them. Frustrating the veterans is that relatives of veterans from other countries who fought alongside with U.S. troops have been exempted from the annual limits, allowing them to come to the U.S. immediately.

Hirono’s amendment gives the children of the Filipino veterans the same waiver.

The change would still have to pass the House. Still, the support by the powerful and prestigious committee was also a measure of recognition for the veterans, who have felt their contributions during World War II have been unappreciated. The issue has been an emotional ones for the veterans in part because they are aging and say they want their children and grandchildren near them in their final years.

The veterans may also get more recognition. Separate from the immigration debate, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee is scheduled on June 5 to hear a proposal by Sen. Brian Schatz to allow them to receive full veterans benefits. The benefits had been promised by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the war, but the benefits were strripped in 1946. The Filipino veterans are the only ones from among 66 countries allied with the U.S. during the war who have been denied benefits.

“These veterans should not be forced from their children in their later years,” committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.