Immigration Bill's Demise Not a Reason to Cheer (Arizona Star barf alert)

Immigration bill's demise not a reason to cheer Our view: Senate's failure to act will not make our borders any safer, or make the 12 million illegal residents go away

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.01.2007 By the end of last week, every politician who could get to a phone or a computer was eager to let the world know how disappointed he or she was over the death of the immigration bill.

Those were the people, like Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who had made a valiant but unsuccessful effort to create an immigration bill that would lure hard-liners from the far right and far left into the center. That didn't happen. Narrow-mindedness won the day. Anyone who sees this as a victory for America is living in a fantasyland.

Arizona Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen reflected the views of many of the critics when he declared that the defeat of the immigration bill was "a great day for Americans in general and the grassroots of the Republican Party."

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps called the death of the immigration bill "a small but significant victory . . . in the fight to secure our nation's borders."

It is questionable whether either Pullen or the militia reflects the views of most Republicans or most Americans. Certainly their views are opposite of those expressed repeatedly on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, which is arguably the most conservative mainstream newspaper in the country.

There is no question, however, that both Pullen and the militia reflect an opinion consistent with that of the John Birch Society, which says, "The problem facing the nation along the southern border with Mexico is not so much immigration as invasion."

By extension, this view holds that those here illegally are nothing more than criminals, regardless of how long they've been here or what their achievements have been or how much they have contributed to the U.S. economy. But those who cheer the death of the immigration bill in effect cheer the death of progress. The bill's defeat does nothing except maintain the status quo, which is precisely what the critics were fighting against. By a roll-call vote of 46-53, those who were unhappy with the bill basically shot themselves in the foot.

Failure to adopt a comprehensive immigration law will not result in a protective bubble over the United States, nor will it lead to a long line of buses carrying 12 million illegal residents out of the country.

On the contrary, maintaining the status quo means the estimated 12 million undocumented workers will continue playing a game of cat and mouse with immigration authorities. The rejected bill would have set up a system for bringing those people out of the shadows. Amnesty was not a gift without strings; certainly it led to citizenship, but it was a difficult and cumbersome process. It was not carte blanche.

The bill that died addressed that issue, as well as the need for beefed up border security. Voting to allow the bill to proceed by ending debate were 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans — including Kyl and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — and independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Voting to block the bill by allowing debate to continue were 37 Republicans, 15 Democrats and independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont. One senator, Tim Johnson, D-S.D., did not vote.

Kyl's theory is that the bill's failure was part of the larger voter backlash. A significant number of Americans, he says, lack confidence in the government's ability to secure the border, issue passports and take care of emergencies like Hurricane Katrina.

"Conservative activists," Kyl said, have "a very firm view that the government is unable to get anything right." Those activists had "a huge impact" on the Senate vote, he said.

Kyl may be right, but it seems to be the most positive spin possible to explain the influence of a bunch of fear-mongering, do-nothing pontificators who have been polluting the airwaves all year.

Now they've achieved their goal, which means Congress will not revisit the immigration issue until after the 2008 presidential election. In the 12 days that ended on Wednesday, 11 bodies were found in the desert between the Mexican border and Tucson.

How many more will die before Congress musters the courage to act on an immigration bill that includes a humane process for regulating the flow of foreign workers into the United States?

We've heard all the critics who say such laws already exist, of course, but it doesn't take a genius to see that those laws are not working.

A new approach is needed that includes a guest-worker program, tighter border security and a way to legalize those who are here and have proved themselves worthy of citizenship.

Every member of Congress knows that is needed. However, it is revealing that even a bipartisan effort led by Kyl, a staunch conservative, and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., a staunch liberal, was unable to build a consensus.

The immigration vote was one that will cost us dearly until more reasonable voices make themselves heard.

“That’s a good list. I would strike #9 if it were up to me, but if we get all the other items, I could live with it.”

One thing the pro-amnesty side has been saying that is partially valid is that if we don’t have paths for legal employment-based immigration, the demand for illegal immigration with continue. We need to have some level of legal immigration, or the only immigration will be illegal immigration. what I favor is ending chain migration and replacing it with point-based merit immigration and combining it with a temporary worker program so the low-skilled labor issue is address there. The point about temporary worker program is that we should address the agricultural jobs issue without creating an open-ended program and one subject to abuse. The problem with “AgJobs” and other bills is that they are amnesty bills, that also have provision that end up being anything but temporary worker visas - they can stay unlimited and get on the green card track. What we need instead is a simple, real, temporary worker program - employee only (no family), go home after a number of years, no special green card slots.

One other thing lost in the immigration discussion is the fact that we already have all sorts of visas - too many actually. We should simplify from the 70 or so visa types to under 10 or less.

While I agree we should have some legal immigration, I disagree that we "need" it. If the penalties for hiring illegals are high enough, and enforced with the same zeal most criminal law is enforced with, the demand for illegal workers would be very low. No respectable establishment would want to hire an illegal if it faced a reasonable probability of getting caught and fined. Of course, no matter what we do, short of legalizing all immigration, we will never eradicate all illegal immigration, no more than we can erradicate murder or bank roberrty. As NRO's Andy McCarthy pointed out, crime problems are not solved, they are managed.

But it is possible, even with very low levels of legal immigration, to have tolerably low illegal immigration. Now that's not necessarily desirable, but it is doable. Japan did it, for example. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we ought to copy Japan's immigration policy; they should allow in more (highly skilled) immigrants, IMHO. My only point is that keeping illegal immigration levels low is possible regardless of how many legal immigrants we let in.

what I favor is ending chain migration and replacing it with point-based merit immigration

Agreed.

and combining it with a temporary worker program so the low-skilled labor issue is address there.

Unemployment among low skill Americans is in double digits. I fail to see why we need to import more such people. Our own already cause enough problems as it is.

The point about temporary worker program is that we should address the agricultural jobs issue

There's no issue to address. There's no such thing as a job an American won't do if the wage is high enough. If we cut off the cheap supply of illegal farm workers, farm worker wages would go up to the point where enough workers are willing to pick the crops. Food prices would go up, but only by a small amount since farm labor is such a tiny fraction of total food costs. Ag economists have already run these numbers. Higher farm labor costs would also induce agribusiness to invest in more labor saving technology and R&D. This is already happening, as now the industry is working to develop robots to pick oranges, for example.

without creating an open-ended program and one subject to abuse.

Unfortunately, there is no way of creating a guest worker program that wouldn't turn out to be something like this. There's no such thing as a temporary worker.

What we need instead is a simple, real, temporary worker program - employee only (no family), go home after a number of years, no special green card slots.

The problem is, they don't go home. Just ask the Germans what happened to all those supposedly "temporary" Turks they imported. Ask the Dutch about their "temporary" Arabs.

One other thing lost in the immigration discussion is the fact that we already have all sorts of visas - too many actually. We should simplify from the 70 or so visa types to under 10 or less.

Agreed.

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