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 Editorials | March 2006 
An Immigration Breakthrough
 NYTimes
| | A demonstrator wearing a caricature mask of U.S. President George W. Bush marches along with a peaceful protest in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, March 18, 2006. Around 500 protesters marched through central Sydney on the anti-war rally, marking the third anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq with a demand that coalition troops pull out. (AP/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds) |
The clock was running out on the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, and with it the chances for a meaningful overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. After weeks of work, the committee members faced a rigid deadline to get a bill ready before next week's recess. But about all they had agreed on were various ways to tighten the borders. It was increasingly likely that Congress's message to 12 million illegal immigrants would end up being this: Thanks for the help — now get out.
But in a startling pivot, so sharp you could almost hear it, a bipartisan consensus emerged in the hearing room. Senator Arlen Specter, the committee's chairman, endorsed the principle behind an earlier bill sponsored by Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy: that illegal immigrants who met strict criteria and paid fines and back taxes should have a path to permanent residency and citizenship.
Mr. Specter said he was all for that, as long as the country first cleared up the backlog of three million foreigners seeking to come here through legal channels. The panel also neared an agreement on a related proposal to allow foreign guest workers to enter legally and earn permanent status. Mr. Specter said he wanted a comprehensive bill ready when Congress reconvened on March 27, the deadline set by the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, who has his own hard-line border-tightening bill waiting in the wings.
The blowback was instantaneous. Mr. Frist announced that he would be putting his own bill forward as an alternative to the committee's. Seventy-one House members signed a letter saying that the Judiciary Committee's actions were "fundamentally incompatible" with the House's strident vision of immigration reform, which completely rejects the idea of providing illegal immigrants any path to legalization.
Mr. Specter often wilts under party pressure like lettuce in a broiler, but he has shown admirable resilience in working to get a comprehensive immigration bill to the Senate floor. His committee's emergent consensus, fragile but real, has finally pointed to a way out of what has been a bitter struggle between starkly conflicting visions of what America should do about immigration. For too long the debate has been hijacked by stereotypes. The recent waves of newcomers are not all potential terrorists living among us like pod people. Nor is every last one a model-citizen-in-waiting.
The chances of finally fixing the immigration system depend on Congress's recognition and acceptance of what President Bush has said for years: that immigration reform is about far more than border enforcement, and that there is a way to bring order and lawfulness to an unauthorized population without compromising the values and traditions of our robust immigrant nation.
Mr. Specter's compromise has wisely elevated the discussion by endorsing a balanced approach. That means making the borders more secure, trying to match the supply of work visas with the demand, and sending this message to the illegal immigrants who are already here: Come out of the shadows, and join your neighbors in making America a better place. |
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