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The US Senate has blocked a vote on a landmark immigration bill, dealing a major blow to one of President George W Bush's key policy planks.

Senators rejected a motion to take the bill to a final vote - meaning action on the planned law is now unlikely until the presidential poll in 2008.

President Bush had argued the bill would give the immigration system a much-needed overhaul.

But its conservative opponents said it gave an amnesty to illegal immigrants.

The planned law would have enabled some of the millions of illegal immigrants already living within the US to eventually seek citizenship.

It would have also offered some would-be migrants the chance to apply for a guest-worker programme.

The bill also proposed tougher border controls to prevent more illegal immigrants from entering the country.

'Stunning' defeat

President Bush spent much of Thursday morning on the phone, trying to persuade senators to back the bill.

As the vote neared, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez approached senators directly outside the chamber in an effort to win them over.

Eventually, 53 members of the 100-seat Senate voted against limiting debate on the immigration bill and taking it to a final vote.

Much of the opposition came from conservatives within President Bush's Republican party, as well as from Democratic senators who represent conservative areas.

In a brief statement after the vote, President Bush said immigration was a burning issue for the American people and "Congress' failure to act on it is a disappointment".

"The American people understand the status quo is unacceptable when it comes to our immigration laws," he said.

"A lot of us worked hard to see if we couldn't find common ground. It didn't work."

The Senate now goes into summer recess.

According to the BBC's Washington correspondent, Justin Webb, Thursday's vote marks a stunning political defeat for the president.

He says the Senate vote could open the floodgates, heralding a series of defeats for the president's other plans - including a potential troop surge in Iraq.

And it leaves unsolved the controversial and highly emotive issue of immigration, our correspondent says.

Security priority

Business leaders and lobbyists for immigration reform voiced upset at the result.

"We were looking to politicians for leadership on this issue, and there has been none and it's deeply disappointing," Sheridan Bailey, a co-founder of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, told Reuters news agency.

"It's like in Vietnam when they said 'we had to destroy the village to save it,' - well, here they are destroying the economy to save the U.S. border," Mr Bailey said.

But opponents of the bill said the vote highlighted citizens' concerns that boosting border security was the biggest priority.

Americans want "action, they want results, they want proof, because they've heard all the promises before," Republican Senator David Vitter told the AFP news agency.   

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