WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee approved sweeping election-year legislation that clears the way for 11 million illegal aliens to seek U.S. citizenship, as protesters who had spilled into the streets by the hundreds of thousands demanded better treatment for immigrants.

With a bipartisan coalition in control, the committee also voted down proposed criminal penalties on immigrants found to be in the country illegally.

It approved a new temporary program allowing entries seeking jobs in the agriculture industry.

“All Americans wanted fairness and they got it this evening,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, who played a pivotal role in drafting the legislation.

There was no immediate reaction, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he hoped President George W. Bush would take part in efforts to fashion consensus legislation. “The only thing that’s off the table is inaction,” said Graham, who voted for the committee bill.

The 12-6 vote ran down along unusual lines, a majority of the panel’s Republicans being opposed to the measure even though their party controls the Senate. All of the panel’s Democrats supported the measure.

Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican seeking reelection this fall, said the bill offered amnesty to illegal immigrants, and sought unsuccessfully to insert tougher provisions.

He told fellow committee members that the economy would turn sour some day and American workers would want the jobs that now go to illegal immigrants. They will ask, “How could you have let this happen?” he added.

Split Republicans

Committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, was one of four Republicans to support the bill, but he signalled strongly that some of the more controversial provisions could well be changed when the bill reaches the Senate floor. That is “very frequently” the case when efforts to reach a broad bipartisan compromise falter, he noted.

In purely political terms, the issue threatened to fracture Republicans as they head into the midterm election campaign — one group eager to make labor readily available for low-wage jobs in industries such as agriculture, construction and meatpacking, the other determined to place a higher emphasis on law enforcement.

That was a split Mr. Bush was hoping to avoid after a political career spent building support for himself and his party from the fast-growing Hispanic population.

In general, the bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee is designed to strengthen enforcement of U.S. borders, regulate the flow into the country of so-called guest workers and determine the legal future of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally, among them Filipinos.

Virtual border wall

The bill would double the Border Patrol and authorizes a “virtual wall” of unmanned vehicles, cameras and censors to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border.

It also allows more visas for nurses and agriculture workers, and shelters humanitarian organizations from prosecution if they provide non-emergency assistance to illegal residents.

New citizenship process

The most controversial provision would permit illegal aliens currently in the country to apply for citizenship without first having to return home, a process that would take at least six years or more. They would have to pay a fine, learn English, study American civics, demonstrate they had paid their taxes and take their place behind other applicants for citizenship, according to aides of Kennedy.

“Well over 60 percent of Americans in all the polls I see think it’s OK to have temporary workers, but you do not have to make them citizens,” said Kyl.

“We have a fundamental difference between the way you look at them and the way I look at them,” Kennedy observed later.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, a potential presidential contender who worked with Kennedy on the issue, told reporters the street demonstrations had made an impact. “All those people who were demonstrating are not here illegally. They are the children and grandchildren” of those who may have been, he said.

The committee met as several thousand demonstrators rallied at the foot of the Capitol.

After a weekend of enormous rallies — including a crowd of as many as 500,000 demonstrators in Los Angeles — thousands of students walked out of class in California and Texas to protest proposals to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Unfilled jobs

Senators on all sides of the issue agreed that illegal workers hold thousands of jobs that otherwise would go unfilled at the wages offered.

The agriculture industry is “almost entirely dependent on undocumented workers,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat.

Mr. Bush has said he favors a guest worker program, but it is unclear whether the administration would insist on a provision to require illegal immigrants already in the country to return home before they are allowed to apply for citizenship.