A deal is in the works that could lead to the most significant overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws in nearly two decades.

A bipartisan group of Senators yesterday reached an agreement with the Bush administration on a major immigration bill.

Their compromise proposal would give millions of undocumented immigrants a fast track to legal status and an opportunity to become citizens. 

It would also create a temporary guest worker program and would toughen border security.

The news comes as legislative bodies from the House of Representatives to the Carpentersville Village Board continue their debates over immigration.

And it comes as the U.S. Census Bureau reported this week that the minority population of the United States surpassed the 100 million mark for the first time in the nation’s history.

The new figures are yet another sign of what’s becoming an increasingly multiracial America.

Harvard University Professor Kim Williams says the new census data is the result of both changing demographics and changing definitions.

She’s the author of the recent book Mark One or More:  Civil Rights in Multiracial America.

She tells Eight Forty-Eight’s Richard Steele that this new census data reflects a little known political fight that raged during much of the 1990s.

Music Button: Bill Frisell/Ron Carter/Paul Motian, “Eighty-One” from the CD Bill Frisell Ron Carter Paul Motian (Nonesuch Records)