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WASHINGTON POST (Editorial)
Friday, March 24, 2006
"BREAKTHROUGH" is a word that should always be used with extreme care, at least when discussing immigration reform. Nevertheless, it may be warranted: The Senate Judiciary Committee, which had been bogged down for several weeks trying to produce an immigration bill, appears to have reached a consensus. The deal doesn't solve all of the problems, but it does at least try to solve the most difficult: the fate of the estimated 12 million people who live in this country illegally.
In its essence, the compromise -- patterned on a proposal by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) -- allows undocumented workers living here to apply for residency permits, on the condition that they prove they are employed and pay a hefty fine for breaking the law. They would then go to the back of the green card line -- behind those applying legally -- and wait for citizenship. President Bush has always said he would endorse such a solution as long as it doesn't look like an "amnesty" that rewards lawbreakers. During a news conference this week, he seemed to say that the Senate solution might be precisely that: "People who have been here need to get in line, like everybody else," he confirmed.
This is, of course, a very fragile sort of agreement. It hasn't been voted on, or even properly written down. It doesn't get to the issue of what to do about temporary workers who want to come here in the future, and it doesn't solve the border control issues either. Amazingly, some in the Senate and the House are still pushing to build a wall along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, a project that -- aside from its unpleasant symbolism -- would cost billions of dollars (a 14-mile wall near San Diego cost $70 million alone), would deal with only part of the problem (40 percent of the undocumented are thought to have arrived in other ways), and would not prevent people from using tunnels and ladders to get across, as they do now.
Even more worrying are the complicated politics of making any immigration deal stick. Already, the immigration debate has become a forum for 2008 campaign jockeying, as possible presidential contender Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) tries to distance himself from possible presidential contender Mr. McCain, largely by sounding a much harder line on enforcement. Since the House doesn't seem to be in a mood to talk about anything but enforcement either, that bodes ill for anyone who wants a realistic solution to the problem of the undocumented. Still, a breakthrough is a breakthrough, however fragile, and the senators on the Judiciary Committee, led by Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), are to be commended for reaching it.
Friday, March 24, 2006
"BREAKTHROUGH" is a word that should always be used with extreme care, at least when discussing immigration reform. Nevertheless, it may be warranted: The Senate Judiciary Committee, which had been bogged down for several weeks trying to produce an immigration bill, appears to have reached a consensus. The deal doesn't solve all of the problems, but it does at least try to solve the most difficult: the fate of the estimated 12 million people who live in this country illegally.
In its essence, the compromise -- patterned on a proposal by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) -- allows undocumented workers living here to apply for residency permits, on the condition that they prove they are employed and pay a hefty fine for breaking the law. They would then go to the back of the green card line -- behind those applying legally -- and wait for citizenship. President Bush has always said he would endorse such a solution as long as it doesn't look like an "amnesty" that rewards lawbreakers. During a news conference this week, he seemed to say that the Senate solution might be precisely that: "People who have been here need to get in line, like everybody else," he confirmed.
This is, of course, a very fragile sort of agreement. It hasn't been voted on, or even properly written down. It doesn't get to the issue of what to do about temporary workers who want to come here in the future, and it doesn't solve the border control issues either. Amazingly, some in the Senate and the House are still pushing to build a wall along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, a project that -- aside from its unpleasant symbolism -- would cost billions of dollars (a 14-mile wall near San Diego cost $70 million alone), would deal with only part of the problem (40 percent of the undocumented are thought to have arrived in other ways), and would not prevent people from using tunnels and ladders to get across, as they do now.
Even more worrying are the complicated politics of making any immigration deal stick. Already, the immigration debate has become a forum for 2008 campaign jockeying, as possible presidential contender Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) tries to distance himself from possible presidential contender Mr. McCain, largely by sounding a much harder line on enforcement. Since the House doesn't seem to be in a mood to talk about anything but enforcement either, that bodes ill for anyone who wants a realistic solution to the problem of the undocumented. Still, a breakthrough is a breakthrough, however fragile, and the senators on the Judiciary Committee, led by Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), are to be commended for reaching it.
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