Thread: Isakson-McCain 2007

March 23, 2007, 7:45 a.m.

Isakson-McCain 2007

By The Editors


President Bush says that he has seen more support for his “comprehensive” immigration reform on Capitol Hill since last fall’s elections. On the campaign trail, however, amnesty for illegal aliens remains as unpopular as it was in November. Sen. John McCain has been out on the hustings and he sees less support for himself — thanks to the immigration-reform legislation he cosponsored with Sen. Ted Kennedy.

As McCain is learning, his position on immigration reform could be a major hurdle in appealing to the conservative voters he so badly needs to revive his stalled presidential candidacy. He reportedly still backs “comprehensive” reform, but has shied away from lending his name to the latest amnesty Kennedy is cooking up. McCain says he is open to Rep. Mike Pence’s better-disguised amnesty plan, but there is an alternative Senate proposal that a majority of his Republican colleagues support and that would reassure conservative voters of his seriousness about border security.

In 2005, Kennedy and McCain introduced a Senate bill to create a guest-worker program and reward 12 million illegal aliens with a path to citizenship. Arlen Specter picked up many of their worst ideas in crafting his own guest-worker-cum-amnesty bill, which passed the Senate in 2006. A majority of Senate Republicans opposed him, and in the end the efforts of House Republicans kept this policy disaster from becoming law.

Now Kennedy is at it again, although this time he is expected to introduce his amnesty bill without McCain’s support because they are reportedly “at odds over key points.” Unfortunately, a “comprehensive” reform including amnesty remains key to John McCain. “We have to have a comprehensive approach to reform, which means a temporary-worker [program], as well as securing our borders, as well as addressing the 12 million people who are here illegally in both a comprehensive and humane fashion,” he explained to the Boston Globe.

As McCain has looked for an alternative to Kennedy’s approach, Rep. Mike Pence’s “touchback proposal” has caught his eye. Under the Pence plan, illegal aliens would have to step back across the border into Mexico; only then could they return to the U.S. and to the jobs they once held illegally. These formerly illegal aliens would be legal guest workers for six years, after which they would have to return home or seek citizenship.

The problem with this allegedly “no amnesty” bill is that, if legal-immigration quotas stay at current levels, there can be only two outcomes six years from now when the guest-worker period expires: Either the guest workers will face the kind of mass deportation that Pence rejects as unrealistic; or they will be given permanent residency without being subject to immigration quotas — meaning that they will have circumvented current law and been amnestied after all. The Pence plan does beef up border enforcement, but in addition to the infeasibility of its guest-worker scheme it suffers from the fundamental flaw in all “comprehensive” reform plans: Illegal aliens would be rewarded now, while enforcement at the border and the workplace would happen later, if ever.

We’ve been down this road before. The 1986 amnesty was supposed to couple tougher border enforcement with an attempt to bring illegals already here “out of the shadows.” The enforcement was stillborn, but the law was a magnet for new aliens. Twenty years on, the illegal population has swelled from 4 to at least 12 million.

McCain should endorse an immigration reform that won’t repeat this mistake and can enjoy broad support in Republican ranks: in other words, the proposal of Sen. Johnny Isakson.

Isakson would prohibit granting legal status to any illegal alien until border-security measures were fully operational. His bill would also create an identification system to verify the legality of workers. Only when the current chaos is under control would a guest-worker program go into effect. (Isakson’s plan would be even better if a separate, expedited vote were required to create such a program.) This sequential approach offers a welcome compromise between the border-security and amnesty camps, and represents a realistic acknowledgment that the current system is incapable of handling the enormous demands of a legalization program.

There is legitimate suspicion that “comprehensive” immigration proposals cynically promise popular enforcement measures to help an unpopular amnesty go down. That Isakson’s reasonable “enforcement first” plan was defeated last year on a 55–40 vote by senators who claimed to be committed to border security strengthens such skepticism. “Enforcement First” enjoys broad support. An Isakson-McCain reform would smooth over the rough spots that the Kennedy-McCain bill has created on the campaign trail.


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National Review Online - http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Nz ... RjN2M4YjI=

Mcnobrain mccain will never get it. We already have a guest worker plan in place, and we already have existing immigration laws. What the American people want is enforcement and Americans put first! Not illegals.
Quit wasting your time mclamebrain, you aren't going to sell anyone your snake oil amnesty crap anymore.