The U.S. Senate will get another chance this week to do what’s right for America and create a sensible, comprehensive solution to illegal immigration.
There are at least 12 million reasons why it deserves another chance, and why a more secure border also is needed.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the legislation from consideration earlier this month after it bogged down and failed to clear a procedural hurdle. He was fearful “killer” amendments would scuttle it, but now he hopes to have something passed by the July 4 recess.
Hundreds of possible amendments have been whittled down to 22, with agreement from both sides. Hopefully, the bill won’t get snarled in another procedural thicket and can be put to a final vote.
The revived bill includes a provision, agreed to in principle by Senate leaders and with the support of President Bush, that would boost funding for border security and workplace enforcement by $4.4 billion. But opponents still object to provisions that offer a path to legalization for millions of undocumented immigrants, an understandable sentiment.
We hope lawmakers can now see their way past the politics and try to come up with a way to fix this country’s broken immigration system. A guest-worker program that allows employers to fill jobs with legal employees would eliminate the dangerous human smuggling and border crossings and alleviate such related crimes as identity theft that now occur as a way of filling jobs.
We now have a system that practically begs for people – businesses and willing workers – to break the law. Any new law must include some type of fraud-proof ID for all non-citizens seeking work. Would-be employees now can present any of 27 kinds of documents to prove their legal status, which makes it hard for employers to tell who is legal and who is not.
Colorado congressman and presidential aspirant Tom Tancredo had hoped the immigration-reform legislation was down for the count. Tancredo has called the immigration bill a “horrendous piece of legislation” and warned that if it gets to the House, “it is in serious trouble.”
Tancredo won a small victory Friday when the House approved his amendment to the Homeland Security funding bill to withhold emergency aid from U.S. “sanctuary cities” that shelter illegal immigrants. Tancredo is basing his campaign for president on “securing our borders and fighting amnesty.” Tancredo’s amendment targets cities like Boulder and Denver, which he claims welcome illegal immigrants.
Colorado passed a law last year that requires law enforcement to report to federal authorities when illegals are arrested or cited for crimes. Problem is, the federal authorities rarely do anything about it and those arrested are often released.
Ironically, Tancredo’s amendment provides proof of why we need a comprehensive immigration-reform law. Right now, we have a patchwork of laws across the country and they’re not working.
“Each day our nation fails to act, the problem only grows worse,” Bush said last week.
The fact that we need to fix the problems with illegal workers in this country is obvious by the intense behind-the-scenes lobbying to revive the immigration bill. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Federation of Independent Business and the Business Roundtable, to name just a few, have all lobbied to resurrect the bill.
We need to find a way to hook up willing American employers with those willing workers under a legal system like a guest- worker program, while protecting the current American workforce.
