By DPA
Washington : Leaders in the US Senate have agreed to reconsider an immigration reform bill pushed by President George W. Bush that had appeared to die last week.
Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell agreed Thursday to bring the legislation back for debate following a 45-minute meeting, The Hill, a newspaper that covers the Congress, said.
The legislation that had been hailed last month as a historic immigration reform seemed to die last week when members of Bush's Republican Party would not agree to vote on the measure.
It was seen as a major setback for the fragile compromise, hammered out between US President George W. Bush's conservative White House and leading Democrats in Congress.
The bill has been at the top of Bush's domestic agenda for years, but he was unable to convince fellow Republicans, who controlled both chambers of Congress from 2003-07, to back his pro-immigration approach to reform.
The bill would overhaul immigration laws, providing for an expanded "guest worker" programme and a path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million or more people living illegally in the United States.
"We met this evening with several of the senators involved in the immigration bill negotiations," a brief statement released by Reid and McConnell said. "Based on that discussion, the immigration bill will return to the Senate floor after completion of the energy bill."