In order to protect their vision of a guest-worker and citizenship program, the Senate has made what seems like a conciliatory gesture to House Republican hardliners in the great immigration debate of 2006. We refer to Senate approval of a 370-mile fence along the Mexican border.
Indeed, the Senate bill calls for a triple-layer fence – one-upping the double-layer barrier the House approved as part of a punitive immigration bill last December.
The House bill calls for 698 miles of fence and includes a number of other tough provisions. It would require employers to verify workers’ Social Security numbers or face fines up to $25,000 per infraction; end the “catch-and-release” policy of freeing immigrants found in the U.S. illegally; impose mandatory sentences for those who re-enter after deportation; reimburse sheriffs in 29 border counties for detaining illegal immigrants and handing them over to the feds, and make illegal entry a felony offense.
Conspicuously absent from the House bill is legalization for workers already here illegally. The Senate, by contrast, has proposed a guest-worker program and, ultimately, a path to citizenship for some of the illegal immigrants (excluding felons and repeat misdemeanor offenders). The “A-word” – amnesty – has sharply divided Republican ranks. President Bush and his business base, which likes cheap labor, favor amnesty, but law-and-order legislators oppose any process that ultimately accommodates lawbreakers. (A Zogby poll last month showed 52 percent of Americans oppose amnesty versus 32 percent in favor.)
Without warning, the Senate passed an amendment by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., to make English the official language of the United States but then quickly thought better of it, replacing it with an amendment by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., to designate English as the “common and unifying language” without nullifying services and materials offered in other languages.
Monday, President Bush announced plans to dispatch 6,000 National Guard troops to help secure the border as part of a $1.9 billion program to increase border security. And some big players – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrup Grumman among them – are already lining up to bid on multibillion-dollar contracts to build a high-tech “virtual border.”
Fences, guard units, language provisions … may we make a suggestion? If Congress is really ready to resolve the nation’s immigration dilemma and enforce a secure border, it must at minimum create a verifiable identification card, end “catch-and-release,” devise a guest program to clarify worker rights and responsibilities, crack down on the “coyotes” who smuggle workers across the border, and crack down on employers who hire them with a wink and a nod.
