What could have been a simple move in the Senate to honor the late labor activist Cesar Chavez got tangled up in a partisan dispute — over immigration.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) tried Monday evening to get unanimous consent for a resolution honoring the co-founder of what is now the United Farm Workers labor union. But Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) promptly blocked the request, asking to add language to the symbolic measure stressing that Chavez had advocated for tougher border security and for enforcing immigration laws to reduce the “deleterious” effects of undocumented workers on those who are legally here.

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“It’s really shameful that we can pass, you know, commemorative resolutions on some of the most insignificant things,” Menendez said Monday. “But on the life of someone who changed the course of this country for millions of Latinos who understand that life and history and would want to see that life commemorated, that there can be continuing objections [for] eight years.”That push, which Sessions said comes from language requested by fellow conservative Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), drew immediate rebuke from frustrated Democrats, who noted that this is the eighth consecutive year that a resolution honoring Chavez has been blocked in the Senate.

Menendez and Sessions are at opposite ends of the immigration issue.

Menendez was a member of the Gang of Eight that crafted the sweeping reform bill that passed the Senate last June. Sessions, meanwhile, is one of the biggest Hill critics of immigration reform efforts that would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and allow more foreign workers in the future into the United States.

“Had [the Senate Gang of Eight bill] passed, it would have been adverse to farmworkers who are in this country working hard, needs pay raises and need better job opportunities,” Sessions said Monday as he blocked the resolution. “I think these are important parts of Mr. Chavez’s career.”

Conservatives and critics of immigration reform have noted that Chavez favored a tougher stance on immigration.

Chavez and Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the UFW, had fought against the Bracero Program that began in the 1940s, believing that it hurt legal U.S. workers whose jobs were taken by undocumented immigrants, who were being exploited by their employers. The UFW had also advocated for a so-called “wet line” at the U.S.-Mexico border to block immigrants from entering the United States illegally.

But the influential farmworkers union says it has been a consistent proponent of immigration reform — for instance, Huerta helped write the amnesty provisions of the 1986 immigration law under President Ronald Reagan that helped legalize 1 million farmworkers, according to the union.

Monday would have been Chavez’s 87th birthday, and President Barack Obama has designated the day as “Cesar Chavez Day” to be honored with service, community and education programs. Chavez died in 1993 at age 66.