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IMMIGRATION'S MOMENT
March 15, 2006
This is a pivotal week in the search for answers for the nation's immigration problems. The Senate Judiciary Committee resumes debate today over a bill whose design and fate could determine whether Congress finally achieves comprehensive, workable immigration reform or adds to decades of failure.
The Senate's role is crucial because the House has already passed its bill, a punitive measure that seeks to stem the immigrant tide without offering the other half of a true solution: a constructive approach to the estimated 12 million people who are already here illegally. Since the House bill would make being here without papers an aggravated felony, would turn people who extend charity to illegal immigrants into 'alien smugglers' and would grant state and local police officers the 'inherent authority' to enforce immigration laws, the authors presumably want to rouse the country to seek out and deport every last unauthorized person.
Nothing in past experience suggests that such an effort is possible, or that it would accomplish anything beyond making millions of people shrink further from the sunlight of lawfulness and order, and giving the bill's sponsors the transient illusion that the United States is a mighty fortress unto itself.
The Judiciary Committee is under pressure from the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, to complete a bill by the end of the month. Its chairman, Arlen Specter, is trying to walk a tightrope between the hard-core restrictionists and those who favor real reform. Senator Specter has shaped an unsatisfactory compromise: a program that would not build in a path to citizenship. It would create a hired army of permanently temporary workers, who would be free to take our most strenuous and unwanted jobs but not to integrate into society.
The bill would not explicitly bar those with temporary work visas from pursuing the existing paths to citizenship, but since the number of green cards would not appreciably increase, their path to citizenship would effectively be blocked. Mr. Specter's bill would not create a two-tiered society with a permanent underclass; it would merely enshrine the phenomenon in law.
One sign of this country's self-confidence and strength has been its ability to welcome and absorb the people who want to make new lives here. Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy, recognizing this, have offered a bill that would provide a path to earned legalization for those who put down roots, learn English, keep their records clean and pay back taxes and steep fines.
Mr. Specter and his committee colleagues should follow the McCain-Kennedy example in creating a comprehensive immigration bill, one that acknowledges that permanent guest workers, while important, are no substitute for immigrant citizens who work their way up to better jobs, pay more taxes, buy houses and consumer goods, and otherwise strengthen the social fabric.
If the committee needs more time to do this, Mr. Specter should insist that Mr. Frist ease up on his deadline. President Bush, meanwhile, should show leadership in pushing for sensible and humane program for temporary workers. He should rediscover his election-season enthusiasm for his vision of America as a land of opportunity 'para todos,' for all. And the rest of us need to decide where we want to live: in a shining city on a hill, or a gated community in a cul-de-sac.
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