The immigration bill that has stalled in the U.S. Senate is not dead, which is good news.
But saving it requires a measure of fortitude and courage that some in the Senate have lacked in recent days. That’s the bad news.
Lawmakers from both parties must renew their efforts for a compromise. If not, Americans could be stuck with a broken immigration system for several more years, which is unacceptable.
We need a law that goes beyond fence-building and acknowledges the economic realities of our growing immigrant workforce.
We are a nation of laws, as opponents of the bill point out. But the laws aren’t being enforced; employers are not verifying the IDs of people who work for them, for example. The compromise bill would remedy that with a new employee verification system. That’s where the last major reform effort in 1986 failed.
What stalled this past week was not perfect legislation, but it met the needs of U.S. employers while creating a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. It would require fraud-proof documents with biometric identifiers, add 1,000 new Immigration and Custom Enforcement employees, and reimburse state and local communities that detain criminals, along with other provisions.
It’s far from a free pass for those who came here illegally, requiring them to pay penalties and fees while undergoing a background check and learning English.
“If we’re going to have a system that works, we need to enforce our immigration laws,” Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar said Friday, noting that many of the 12 million people believed to be here illegally entered legally but have overstayed their visas.
Salazar said he and other bill supporters will work with President Bush when he returns from Europe to bring staunch adversaries to their senses. Then he and other reform backers will work on amendments that “will get the bill over the finish line,” he said. Salazar said that opponents refused to make their amendments public, so it became virtually impossible to find common ground.
Senate President Harry Reid pulled the bill temporarily after failing to get the needed vote to stop debate and vote on the bill, which meant opponents could continue to try to water down the proposal.
Lawmakers should keep in mind that the vast majority of Americans favor a guest-worker program.
We urge them to use this timeout to let tempers cool so they can come back to the table for an honest and open debate about reasonable methods to fix our broken system and create a workable one.
