But the bigger question over the status of the 1.5 million illegals from Asia remains in limbo.

The immigration reforms championed by US President George W Bush were aimed at giving illegal aliens a path to citizenship but could not gain a simple majority in a procedure vote last week to speed its passage in the Senate.

Many of Bush's Republican party lawmakers and their conservative base complained that the reform package was in effect an amnesty.

They wanted a controversial provision, which would shift some of the emphasis in legalizing the country's 12 million illegal immigrants from family ties toward an applicant's skills and education.

But that was opposed by many Democrats who complained it would break up families.

"In some sense this failure of the procedural vote gives us a pause in the debate," Deepa Iyer, executive director of the South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow.

"It is stalled but not over," she was quoted saying in a feedback forum by New America Media, a US grouping of ethnic news organisations.

Iyer's advocacy group has joined a growing number of Asian American organisations in slamming the proposed legislation for eliminating certain family-based visa categories.

Immigration is the hottest political topic after Iraq in the United States and also a hugely divisive issue.

Asian Americans are also torn by the stalling of the Senate immigration reforms. Though they back efforts to legalize the 1.5 million undocumented Asian immigrants, many cannot accept the proposed family-based immigration limitations, New America Media said.