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ARIZONA REPUBLIC
(Editorial): McCain and Kennedy
bring sense, not rhetoric,
to immigration
May 13, 2005br />
This isn't about amnesty.
The bill introduced Thursday by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., is a bipartisan move toward immigration reform that has the support of business and immigrant rights groups.
It reflects the realities - not the rhetoric - of illegal immigration. It shows respect for human dignity, family values and national security. It also recognizes current and future labor needs.
This bill includes border security measures. It seeks to get Mexico to accept responsibility for medical care for migrants, as well as joining in multinational efforts to prevent illegal immigration.
The proposal recognizes future labor needs in the United States by creating an expanded guest-worker program.
It increases employer sanctions for hiring the undocumented, and calls for establishing a secure identification system so those sanctions can be imposed. The lack of such an identification system makes the employer sanctions in current law nearly impossible to enforce.
The focus of congressional debate should be on how to make that identification system reliable, fair and compatible with a free society.
The debate should be about how to structure an efficient process so that would-be migrants abandon the criminal smugglers they now employ and embrace the legal option.
The focus should be on making this reform plan better.
Unfortunately, the debate is being defined by those who kick about "amnesty," but offer nothing constructive on which to build immigration reform.
Yes, the bill aims to lure the current undocumented immigrant population into the light.
But in order to achieve guest-worker status, these immigrants have to pay a stiff fine and back taxes. They also have to demonstrate a good work history and pass a background check.
They don't go to the head of anybody's line, either. Undocumented immigrants who are granted guest-worker status will have to wait much longer to apply for legal residency than those who come legally through the guest-worker program the bill establishes.
Although the bill provides for family unification, it may actually lessen the migration of family members to this country by allowing guest workers to travel back and forth across the border to visit family members.
The current emphasis on border enforcement has made such trips so expensive and risky that migrants often pay smugglers to bring their spouses and children here to live with them.
The carrot of legalization is essential to get the undocumented population - estimated at as many as 11 million people - to come forward and be counted.
Lifting the vast majority of migrants out of this shadow population and into regulated status will deny cover to criminals or terrorists who hide among them. It's about national security, and it's something the current system does not serve.
Border enforcement alone can never succeed without a mechanism to bring willing workers to the employers who need their labor. The buildup of Border Patrol agents during the 1990s was a costly failure that led to increased deaths along the border while illegal immigration also increased.
It is time to embrace a comprehensive policy that moves would-be workers to the ports of entry while allowing Border Patrol agents to focus their energies on stopping drug smugglers and other criminals.
This is about national security, not amnesty. This is about humane border policies, not amnesty. This is about the needs of this nation's economy, not amnesty.
In the House of Representatives, Arizona Reps. Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake, both Republicans, and Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat, have joined McCain and Kennedy to offer a plan to build sane immigration policy.
It's the constructive approach.
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