On behalf of our 60 leading public and private U.S. research universities, I want to express our deep appreciation to members of the Senate for the their approval today of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, S. 744. We offer special thanks to those Senators and staff members who have spearheaded the effort to find bipartisan compromise on this difficult set of issues. We believe that the resulting legislation represents an historic opportunity to move toward an immigration system that is fair and rational and that serves well the economic, social, and educational needs of the nation.