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WASHINGTON — The Senate on June 28 drove a stake through President Bush's plan to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections.

The bill's supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation, which critics assailed as offering amnesty to undocumented immigrants. The vote was 46 to 53 in favor of limiting the debate.

Both New Mexico senators voted in effect to kill the bill by continuing the debate.

Pete Domenici, an Albuquerque Republican, supported the initial compromise version of the bill but said it is now "neither workable or realistic" and is likely "dead on arrival" in the House.

Jeff Bingaman, a Silver City Democrat who voted for last year's immigration-reform bill, said he could not support this one.

"Replacing our broken immigration system with the dysfunctional one outlined in this bill does not make sense," said Bingaman."

Senators in both parties said the issue is so volatile that Congress is highly unlikely to revisit it this fall or next year, when the presidential election will increasingly dominate American politics.

A similar effort collapsed in the Congress last year, and the House has not bothered with an immigration bill this year, awaiting Senate action.

The vote was a stinging setback for Bush, who advocated the bill as an imperfect but necessary fix of current immigration practices in which many undocumented immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the United States.

It was a victory for Republican conservatives who strongly criticized the bill's provisions that would have established pathways to lawful status for many of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants. They were aided by talk radio and TV hosts who repeatedly attacked the bill and urged listeners to flood Congress with calls, faxes and e-mails.

Voting to allow the bill to proceed by ending debate were 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans and independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. Voting to block the bill by not limiting debate were 37 Republicans, 15 Democrats and independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont.

The bill would have toughened border security and instituted a new system for weeding out undocumented immigrants from workplaces. It would have created a new guest-worker program and allowed millions of undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status if they briefly returned home.

Bush, making a last-ditch bid to salvage the bill, called senators this morning to urge their support. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez approached senators as they entered and left the chamber shortly before the vote.

"We have been in contact with members of Congress over the past couple of days, and the president has made it clear that this is important to him," White House spokesman Tony Snow said before the vote.

But conservatives from Bush's own party led the opposition. They repeatedly said the government must secure the borders before allowing millions of undocumented immigrants a path to legal status.

"Americans feel that they are losing their country . . . to a government that has seemed to not have the competence or the ability to carry out the things that it says it will do," said Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole, a North Carolina Republican, said many Americans "don't have confidence" that borders, especially with Mexico, will be significantly tightened. "It's not just promises but proof that the American people want," Dole said.

Domenici said, "Some of the provisions that I initially supported in this bill have been amended to the point that the bill no longer has its initial purposes. For example, the temporary-worker program that is critical to so many industries in my state does not meet those industries' needs."

Domenici said it would be better for New Mexico just to pass an emergency spending bill of $4.4 billion to add border guards, vehicle barriers and fencing.

Bingaman said, "As written, this legislation creates an unnecessarily complicated guest-worker program that would depress American wages and encourage immigrants to overstay their visas, while making dramatic changes - but not necessarily for the better - to the process individuals use to legally immigrate to our country."