Hat Tip To The NYT Editorial Staff

New York Times Editorial: An Immigration Bottom Line

This week starts the endgame for immigration reform in the Senate. Months of debate have come down to this: whether the comprehensive solution at the core of the Senate bill will survive the hostile attentions of those who do not want real reform at all. A brace of amendments has already warped and weakened the bill — though not fatally, thanks to a bipartisan coalition that has fended off repeated attempts at sabotage. But there is still a danger that any legislation will be further compromised or even gutted to conform with the House's deplorable bill.

A good immigration bill must honor the nation's values and be sensible enough to work. It must not violate the hopes of deserving people who want to work toward citizenship. It must not create a servant class of "guest workers" shackled to their employers and forbidden to aspire to permanent legal status. It must give newcomers equal treatment under the law and respect their rights of due process. It must impose rigorous enforcement of labor laws, so unscrupulous employers cannot exploit illegal workers. And it must clear the existing backlogs of millions seeking to enter the country legally, so that illegal immigrants do not win an unfair place in line.

'Amnesty' and the Mythical Middle Ground. The Senate is the only hope for real reform this year because the House has already chosen its plan. It wants to wall off Mexico, turn 11 million or so illegal immigrants into an Ohio-size nation of felons, and then pick them off through arrests, deportation and an atmosphere of focused hostility until they all go home, abandoning their families and jobs.

That spirit of wishful hunkering has infected the Senate, where Democrats and moderate Republicans have had to struggle against the obstinacy of those who join their counterparts in the House in seeing immigration entirely as a pest-control problem. President Bush has aligned himself with the thoughtful reformers, but in a slippery way. "There's some people in our party who think, you know, deportation will work," Mr. Bush said on Thursday. "There are people in the other party that want to have automatic amnesty. As I said in my speech, I've found a good middle ground."

But nobody favoring the Senate bill wants automatic amnesty. It imposes a long and difficult path to citizenship. Illegal immigrants must have a clean record and a job, speak English and pay a big fine. That is what the president wants, though he tries not to say it. His mildness has only validated the efforts of those who cling to the enforcement-only delusion, and who have tried so hard to strip the Senate bill of any meaningful paths to citizenship.

Mr. Bush should have joined the debate far earlier and more assertively, insisting that the "middle ground" lies nowhere near those who refuse any accommodation and favor mass deportations.

The Border Fixation. An immigration solution cannot be focused only on the border. We've tried that. Border enforcement has swelled in the last 20 years, with no visible effect. Mr. Bush's plan to send National Guard troops was seen on both sides, rightly, as a ploy to placate the xenophobes. It would be good to expand the Border Patrol. But the best help we can give it is to enforce workplace rules, ease the pressure for visas and restore law and order in a comprehensive way.

The Enforcement Gap. The value of illegal immigrants to many employers is their fearful willingness to work for low pay in bad conditions. People who are secure in their status will stand up against abuses, leading to better treatment for all. Workplace enforcement is one tactic. Employers who risk real punishment will be less likely to flout the rules. But guest worker programs without the citizenship option are also an invitation to worker abuse, and a shameful abdication of America's values. Mr. Bush has taken this path. Congress must not.

Fairness and Workability. The current bill divides the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants into three groups. Those who arrived less than two years ago would have to go home. Those who have been here for two to five years would be treated as guest workers, and would have to leave and re-enter the country to keep that status. The rest would be able to seek citizenship.

Will this cumbersome bureaucratic solution work? It depends on the willingness of the two-to-five-year group to step forward. For immigration reform to succeed it must lure people out of the shadows — a goal that may be fatally compromised by the punitive hoops the bill erects.

Another profound shortcoming of the bill is its harsh criminal-justice provisions. It greatly expands the types of immigration-related offenses that constitute "aggravated felonies" and thus grounds for detention and deportation. People who use false passports to flee persecution, for example, might be ensnared. The bill increases penalties and the risk of deportation for minor infractions, like failing to file a change of address form. It removes judges' and immigration officers' discretion to weigh individual circumstances, adding toughness at the cost of fairness and decency.

The Xenophobia Problem. The Senate's debate has laid bare a hostility to immigrants that is depressing in its spitefulness and vigor. From Senator James Inhofe's amendment declaring English the national language to one from Jon Kyl that would have barred low-skilled guest workers from seeking permanent status to another from John Ensign that would have denied Social Security credit for work done before an immigrant is legalized, the debate has been littered with attempts to stifle, stymie or blow up the process.

The bipartisan coalition pursuing thoughtfulness over such simplistic hostility has proved sturdy so far. The senators who have fashioned the consensus for comprehensive reform must stick together, or the possibility of a solution this year will die, along with the hopes of millions.

Well said... and something to really make our congress critters think.