By Thomas Ferraro

Following huge nationwide protests, Republicans on Tuesday moved to possibly change two key provisions in a get-tough immigration bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

One would turn millions of illegal immigrants into felons and the other has raised concerns that people who provide them humanitarian relief would be punished. Top Republicans insisted that neither is their intent.

Their verbal commitments to revisit those provisions came a day after hundreds of thousands of people held demonstrations nationwide, provoked by the bill that would also erect a fence along much of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, issued a joint statement, saying: "It remains our intent to produce a strong border security bill that will not make unlawful presence in the United States a felony."