Your editorial, "Homegrown immigration 'reforms' won't work," is a rant rather than a rational argument that might educate. Your headline is correct because local "homegrown reforms" can't apply nationally, and therefore they are not reforms but reactions against failures of our government in Washington.
President George W. Bush had his hand in causing the immigration mess by intentionally refusing to enforce existing immigration law, and that's an impeachable offence. The just-defeated Senate "comprehensive" immigration bill wouldn't have worked either because it was trying to do too many things through a single legislative bill cobbled together by a conspiracy of some of the weakest minds in Washington.
It's fair to call it a conspiracy for otherwise the bill would have been subjected to extensive committee hearings. Its major points, and there are five, could have been rationally and seriously debated.
Those points are:
· How best to protect our country from those who would enter it to do us harm.
· How best to assure our country of a continuous supply of immigrant workers with a variety of skills and education levels that, when added to the U.S. citizens just coming into the labor market, reasonably match the variety of job demands created by our new information economy.
· Shouldn't there also be, as part of any immigration law, a carefully prescribed and announced path to citizenship, one that makes it clear that to become a citizen of this country, one must renounce allegiance to any other country?
· What's to be done with the illegal immigrants already here, and to those who knowingly employed them?
· We must enact a law requiring a national identification card for every citizen to carry. This will be both an aid to law enforcement officials working to keep criminals and terrorists out and an aid to voting officials working to prevent people from voting in our elections when they owe their allegiance to another country.
Several Republican Senators who have been part of this conspiracy may not be reelected next year: Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Chuck Hegel, R-Neb., and even Larry Craig, R-Idaho, as they have exhibited amazing disinterest in the will of the people on this subject.
President Bush will not face impeachment over his dereliction of duty, but only because he is on the same side of this issue as those most anxious to impeach him.
Watching "arrogant Washington" being so effectively corralled by "the people" should provide comfort to those who fear for the future of our country. Now all we need is a list of local employers who knowingly employed illegals and also contribute to Sen. Craig's reelection campaign.
Respectfully submitted by a life-long conservative.
Bill Jaeger
Bellevue
