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Immigration on tap

June 19, 2007 12:35 am

LIKE A PHOENIX rising from the ashes, the painstakingly crafted but seemingly doomed immigration bill may have new life, thanks to a deal between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. After the latter agreed to limit amendments, the former said he'd bring up the bill again, perhaps as early as tomorrow.

The now-stalled measure, carefully stitched together by a bipartisan coalition, contains more pages than the Good Book. Leaders eager for its passage pushed it through the Senate, bypassing the usual gantlet of committee hearings, thereby raising objections from every side.

The complex bill surely contains something for everyone to hate, and it was an amalgam of social conservatives (mostly Republicans) and liberal Democrats that earlier this month threw up the unpassable roadblock. Conservatives dislike the bill's "amnesty" feature, which provides a pathway to citizenship for those now here illegally, while those on the left worry that the bill would create a permanent trapped underclass of "guest workers."

Mr. Reid--who has already adopted the term "undocumented Americans" for illegals--quickly blamed President Bush for the stalemate. "The headlines are going to be 'The President fails again,'" he said. But others saw the bill's derailing as a victory for grass-roots citizens incensed by the coddling of de jure criminals. A group of former Border Patrol agents, for example, calls the bill a "travesty" and "a complete betrayal of the nation."

Certainly, offering citizenship to the illegals now in the country is an expensive course. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has crunched the numbers:

From 12 million to 12.5 million illegal immigrants today live in the United States, more than half of them from Mexico.

Sixty-one percent lack a high-school diploma; only 9 percent are college graduates.

The poverty rate among illegals is twice that of native-born Americans.

If just 10 million illegals receive a grant of amnesty, the ultimate net cost to the government in retirement benefits alone will exceed $2.6 trillion.

Some proponents of the bill have taken to calling opponents "bigots" and "nativists." Rubbish. Americans are among the most generous people on Earth, with a history (even if somewhat mixed) of welcoming immigrants

legally

As former Attorney General Ed Meese puts it, "From a national-security perspective, preventing illegal entry and reducing unlawful presence in the United States is an imperative." Any immigration bill should uphold the law, establish a reasonable, enforceable guest-worker program, and do nothing to diminish the nation's safety.

Listen up, Congress. And give us a bill worth passing.