Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Borders and immigration

Commentary by David Reinhard


By DAVID REINHARD

David Reinhard

Is there a way out of our immigration mess? Must we choose between "ship 'em back" and "amnesty-now-and-forever"? Must we pick between the heavy-handed House bill and the weak-kneed Senate plan that came a cropper?

Sorry, but we cannot allow the extremes to hijack the debate. Our real immigration and security problems are too grave to let each side's emotions hold sway over common sense or to let political calculations trump the common good.

I confess, I have a hard time getting worked up on this issue. More precisely, my emotions tend to cut both ways and cancel each other out. Maybe this accounts for my support for a "can't-we-all-get-along" immigration-security compromise.

That sounds precious and vague, I know. Specifically, however, it means melding the security and fence-building features in the House bill with the normalization and legalization spirit of the Senate proposal. I didn't know it until last week, but this itch to deal makes me part of what the incomparable radio talker and author ("Painting the Map Red") Hugh Hewitt calls the "fences and carrots coalition."

I've never been able to gin up a vast indignation over the illegal immigrant's threshold crime. Admiration is more like it. Indeed, much in the past weeks' demonstrations has been, at once, humbling and inspiring: So many of the marchers seemed to want -- and took great pains to achieve -- what so many of us here take for granted: U.S. citizenship and economic opportunity. How cool is that?

The fact is we're not going to deport millions of illegal immigrants to Mexico and other economic backwaters. We don't have the means, or the stomach to split up families. I'm not sure we should if we even could. Most are hardworking, taxpaying and, yes, law-abiding individuals who came here for the same reason our ancestors came here long ago: to provide a better life for their families when the old country failed to offer opportunity.

Again, they did break the law to arrive and stay here, and they should pay some penalty for this. But many of our ancestors came when there were no limits on legal immigration. Moreover, today's illegal immigrants have been able to live here because of our failure to secure our borders or enforce our employment laws -- and our use of their labor. In short, we need them, and we've played a part in their illegality.

We still need them, and we should now provide a process for their assimilation. The Senate "compromise" left much to be desired, but its spirit is wise and humane. A true compromise should include legalization mechanisms such as a guest-worker program -- and, yes, even a path to ultimate citizenship.

That said, citizenship proponents don't help their cause when their demonstrations feature Mexican flags and upside-down American flags. It's impossible to believe they represent the sentiments of the illegal immigrants in attendance. But they certainly symbolize the hard-core "multiculturalism" that now complicates today's immigration debate. Earlier generations came here to become part of the American melting pot. Americans are going to be rightly reluctant to welcome a new wave of immigrants whose "leaders" reject assimilation, whose allegiance is to other nations, cultures, languages and flags.

Beyond this, the debate must be about securing our borders. This is no theoretical concern. A nation that cannot do this in a post-9/11 world risks more terror massacres. In addition to other security measures, the House bill calls for building a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border -- to supplement the successful one the Clinton administration built near San Diego in the 1990s.

Americans aren't going to be open to normalizing the status of the last 11 million illegal immigrants until they're sure there won't be another 11 million -- and some Islamic terrorists -- behind them. Legalization or citizenship provisions must follow or be conditioned on the kind of security measures in the House bill. Perhaps a compromise could tie progress on legalization to concrete progress on a fence and give the far ends of this fight a stake in the outcome.

We've heard from the Minutemen on our border and Latino marchers in our cities. We've heard from the House and (almost) from the Senate. It's time to hear from Hewitt's "fences and carrots coalition" -- unless you'd rather have an issue than a solution.




 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.