As the U.S. Senate took up immigration reform this week, the Colorado congressional delegation provided ample evidence of the chasm that must be bridged to reach a compromise.
On the one hand, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., spoke publicly in favor of a guest-worker bill that would open an 11-year path the citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now in the United States.
On the other was Rep. Tom Tancredo, the perhaps the foremost opponent of President Bush’s push for a guest worker program. He advocates iron-fisted enforcement and formed an admonitory Greek chorus with fellow Republican Rep. Bob Beauprez to warn against that the Senate was pushing for amnesty, something they fear will only create more illegal immigration.
“It will be like a dinner bell” for illegal immigration, said Beauprez, who is running for governor. “We will have created the biggest magnet ever.”
The Senate bill, which cleared the Judiciary Committee this week, blends a guest-worker program advocated by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., with a proposal by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., to allow the workers to eventually become U.S. citizens.
In contrast, the House passed a bill to curb illegal immigration in December, pointedly avoiding any provision for legalizing the status of the undocumented immigrants. The House bill calls for tighter border security, including a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border, makes illegally entering the United States a felony, imposes tough requirements on employers to verify workers’ status and makes it a crime to help illegal immigrants, a provision that’s alarmed church groups, among others.
But the House version gives no clear direction for what to do about the elephant in the room – the 12 million illegal immigrants already here. The Senate bill looks the pachyderm right in the eye and would allow the 12 million to come out of the shadows, register and gain legitimate status, initially as guest workers for up to six years.
Salazar disputes accusations that the Senate bill is amnesty, which he said is “simply a red herring used by those who don’t want comprehensive immigration reform.” The Senate bill “takes a system of broken borders and lawlessness and creates a workable system of immigration that addresses both the economic and human realities of immigration in our nation.”
The bill also strengthens border enforcement, Salazar noted, and the path to citizenship would be an 11-year process that would combine “punishment and purgatory.”
Recent polls show that about 62 percent of American voters oppose citizenship for illegal immigrants. Less than one-fifth favor allowing them to remain as temporary guest workers as President Bush favors.
Now that the extreme positions have been staked out, it will be up to congressional pragmatists to find the room for compromise. Achieving it will be difficult, given the divisions in Congress and in the nation, but the price of doing nothing is too high. The nation’s porous borders must be made more secure, and soon, and the status of 12 million illegal immigrants must be part of any practical solution.
