Senate-Bush Deal Offers Hope

May 29, 06:02 PM

Current Headlines: "You can't kick them out." President George W. Bush on the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants.

Immigration has always been one of President Bush's better subjects. He came to office with strong views about the admirable qualities of Mexican immigrants in Texas. He also had a strong sense that his party can win Hispanic votes if it plays its cards right.

That turned out to be a big "if." When his party controlled the government, he was unable to enact the immigration measure his times called for: one that gets control of American borders and also brings millions of people out from the shadows of American life.

Now that the Democrats have taken over Congress, he's trying again. He pulled Sen. Ted Kennedy aside at an event in January and asked if they could work something out. Sen. Kennedy proceeded to work with Bush cabinet members and Republican senators, including conservatives.

The result is an honest effort to control a problem that almost certainly cannot be totally eliminated by any law.

Most fundamentally, and most controversially, the bill would give all illegal immigrants who were here at the beginning of the year a chance to get on a path toward legal status and eventual citizenship. They'd have to pay a fine for breaking the immigration law; they'd have to be otherwise law-abiding; and they'd have to jump through other hoops.

Such proposals always bring the charge that they will encourage others to immigrate illegally. Indeed, this country has granted immigration amnesty in the past, only to see the need arise again.

Therefore, this bill is replete with all manner of expenditures and mechanisms designed to control the flow of people over the border. Such efforts aren't new, of course. But a lot of the congressional conservatives seem satisfied that this batch of fences, new hires, new equipment, you name it, is substantive. They have successfully insisted that these measures go into effect before other aspects of the bill.

Beyond those two major provisions -- legal status and border security -- the bill has a lot more. It would create a guestworker program, so that people could enter the country for a specific, temporary job. A lot of American employers want this. And it suits the needs of some workers, who would like to make a little money -- perhaps to put together an investment -- without necessarily uprooting themselves permanently.

Some legislators have worried that this program would keep wages down. The Senate has cut the proposal to 200,000 workers, from 400,000 or 600,000.

Another part of the the bill gives more weight in future immigration applications to job skills, as opposed to family ties. This has been criticized from the right, by the likes of commentator Charles Krauthammer. He says the points system could always be adjusted later to favor families again, which he sees as obviously foolish. Meanwhile, the proposal has been opposed from the left as a threat to the tradition of promoting family ties.

Indeed, family ties is a better, more humane, criterion for immigration. And it probably serves much the same purpose as the emphasis on job skills; it brings people who have connections and responsibilities.

But this bill is fundamentally about the path to legal status and about border security. Disputes about the other aspects should not bring it down. A law is not a constitutional amendment. If some parts don't work out, they can be revisited.

The proposal represents a capable effort to reconcile legitimate, broadly held values and views to bring about a longneeded overhaul in a policy area that's central to the nation's well-being.

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