Washington – In the East Room of the White House on Tuesday, President Bush signed a homeland security bill that will devote $7.5 billion to securing America’s borders from crooks, smugglers, terrorists and illegal immigrants.
“We’ve got to strengthen security along our borders to stop people from entering illegally,” Bush said. “In other words, we’ve got to stop people from coming here.”
To reinforce the message, the administration dispatched two Cabinet secretaries to the Senate Judiciary Committee to call for immigration reform. Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Republican from Pennsylvania, promised prompt consideration.
Bush raised the issue of illegal immigration in his first term, but let it slide. The administration’s efforts to jump start the debate now coincides with the growing concerns of American voters.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff says that immigration now ranks among the top three issues for conservatives, Republicans and residents of border states. Even in non-border states, it has cracked the top 10.
“In my party it’s becoming a central issue,” says McInturff, who warns clients that immigration is a possible “breakout” topic for the 2006 mid-term elections. “Across the country you are starting to see this emotional pickup.”
The problem, says McInturff, is that immigration is becoming an issue – like free trade, federal spending and religious conservativism – that exacerbates “fault lines” in the Republican Party.
“I know of no issue that is more divisive among Republicans today as this one,” agreed GOP strategist Ed Rollins.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other organizations that represent the GOP’s entrepreneurial and business wing are counting on Mexican laborers to plug predicted U.S. labor shortages and keep wages low.
“Our immigration system is broken, and needs to be fixed,” said Thomas Donohue, the chamber president, at a forum on Tuesday. Congress must “make it easier for immigrants to fill jobs in the U.S.” because “we face a current and future worker shortage.”
But for many social conservatives, alarmed by the cultural, economic and environmental effects of immigration, “reform” is a euphemism for “amnesty.” They want the government to seal the Southwest border, arrest millions of illegal immigrants and ship them home to Mexico and Latin America.
“There is an element, particularly in my party, that says, ‘Send them all back!”‘ Sen. John McCain, Republican from Arizona, acknowledged.
McCain spoke at the chamber forum with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat from Massachusetts, with whom he has sponsored a bipartisan bill to seal the borders and set up a guest-worker program.
Thousands of illegal immigrants have been here for years and had children who, by virtue of their birth on American soil, are U.S. citizens, McCain noted. Massive deportations and breaking up families “is not what the lady who holds her lamp beside the golden door is all about,” he said.
As a former Texas governor, Bush has a thorough understanding of the immigration issue and its political heat.
To his credit, he has not abandoned his belief that America’s borders can’t be secure without some kind of guest-worker program.
“Enforcement cannot work unless it is part of a larger comprehensive immigration reform program,” Bush said.
“It makes sense to have a rational plan that says, you can come and work on a temporary basis if an employer can’t find an American to do the job,” Bush said.
And “the fewer people trying to sneak in to work means it’s more likely we’re going to catch drug smugglers and terrorists and gun runners.”
Bush’s proposal requires illegal immigrants to go home to enlist in a guest-worker program, and then return to the U.S. legally. It is tougher than the bill offered by McCain and Kennedy, which would fine illegal immigrants but allow them, if they meet certain conditions, to stay as guest workers.
There’s a danger that Congress won’t listen to the White House. A more politically tempting option may be to issue press releases, throw a lot of money at enforcement, and put off dealing with the difficult, underlying economic causes.
That is a recipe for porous borders. In recent years, said McCain, the United States has tripled the money it spends on border enforcement and doubled the number of guards and agents. Despite such measures, illegal immigration doubled.
There are now an estimated 8 million to 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.
And “border guards are out chasing busboys,” said Kennedy, “when they ought to be looking for terrorists.”
John Aloysius Farrell’s column appears each Sunday in Perspective. Comment at the Washington and the West blog (denverpostbloghouse.com/ washington) or contact him at jfarrell@denverpost.com.
