Washington ? The Senate gave a bipartisan show of support Tuesday for the kind of comprehensive approach to immigration law that President Bush endorsed Monday night, rejecting attempts to limit the legislation to border enforcement only and to kill a proposed guest worker program.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly – 69-28 – to preserve the proposed guest worker program. It would bring up to 325,000 more low-skilled foreign workers into the country each year.

The Senate also voted 55-40 to reject an amendment sponsored by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., that would have delayed the guest worker program and giving illegal immigrants who are already in the United States a path to legal status until after border security had been greatly enhanced.

The Isakson amendment was a “huge test vote” that demonstrated how broad bipartisan support of comprehensive legislation is in the Senate, according to Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., the bill’s co-sponsor. Thirty-six Democrats, 18 Republicans and the Senate’s lone independent voted against the amendment.

Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., voiced confidence that the Senate will pass an immigration bill by the Memorial Day recess. That will set up contentious and unpredictable House-Senate negotiations to reconcile the Senate’s differences with a bill that the House of Representatives passed that calls only for tough border-enforcement measures.

Outside Washington, immigrant rights organizations were gearing up to kick off a campaign to produce 1 million new citizens and voters this year, beginning with a “national lobby day” today.

The civic action campaign, coordinated by religious, labor and community organizations in the We Are America Alliance, aims to channel street passions for immigrant rights into a muscular political force that can persuade Congress to legalize the nation’s estimated 11.5 million illegal migrant workers, increase family visas and approve other favorable reforms.

“This is a way to continue building on the momentum of the marches by building political power,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. “We want to be a force in our community and participate in determining our future.”

Los Angeles immigration alliance members announced Tuesday that they would begin registering voters, handing out citizenship materials and offering postcards and phones to use in contacting elected representatives today at about 50 “democracy centers” set up at churches, union halls and community centers around the region. They also said they would send an 18-member delegation to Washington today to lobby for “just and humane” immigration reform and against President Bush’s plan to use the National Guard to protect the U.S.-Mexico border.

Organizers face both possibilities and challenges in their quest to expand the Hispanic voting electorate. With as many as 12 million potential new voters – both legal residents eligible for citizenship and citizens not yet registered to vote – the community could nearly double its 2004 vote.

But, with the exception of Cubans, Hispanics have comparatively low rates of citizenship and voter registration. Only one of every five Mexican adult immigrants in the United States, for instance, was a citizen in 2004, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.