Thread: Editorial: Budget woes hurting immigration reform

Editorials




Editorial: Budget woes hurting immigration reform

Web Posted: 03/13/2008 05:22 PM CDT


San Antonio Express-News

Illegal immigration is a complex issue, and officials must take that complexity into account when it comes to any meaningful reform.
A sound legislative package must address both enforcement and a path to citizenship, but politicians have focused on enforcement, including the measure to build a fence between the U.S. and Mexico.


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In his recent budget proposal, President Bush continued this one-sided approach, emphasizing enforcement at the expense of creating a more orderly and efficient process for legalization.

While the president asked Congress for $100 million to expand a program to help employers determine whether they are hiring undocumented workers, he requested no additional funding to reduce the backlog of legal immigrants wishing to become citizens, the Associated Press reported.

With no increase in funding, the Citizenship and Immigration Service must rely on $468 million in application fees to cut the backlog.

It is a curious approach, considering that the government is telling immigrants to "head to the back of the line" while doing nothing to shorten that line.

And it serves as further incentive for other immigrants to cross illegally, a route that seems preferable to the bureaucrat backlog faced by their legal counterparts.

"People always argue, well, you ought to fund this, you ought to fund that," Michael Chertoff, the director of Homeland Security, told the news service. "That's great, but the pie is only as big as it is, and no one ever comes up with this slice they want to give back in return for this."

Perhaps, but focusing on workplace enforcement will do nothing to stem the flood of undocumented workers into this country. An estimated 12 million undocumented workers are already here, with more coming every day. A key part of a reasonable solution is to create a path to citizenship for these workers.

Even with such reforms, the flood of workers may continue, but only until the jobs they seek are filled. Once that happens, the U.S. will cease to be the magnet it once was. The marketplace will take care of the problem.

That seems simple enough — perhaps too simple. But only because officials have complicated the problem by focusing on only one aspect of it.

Enforcement and border security are important, but they are merely pieces of what should be a larger legislative effort.



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A sound legislative package must address both enforcement and a path to citizenship, but politicians have focused on enforcement, including the measure to build a fence between the U.S. and Mexico.

Perhaps, but focusing on workplace enforcement will do nothing to stem the flood of undocumented workers into this country. An estimated 12 million undocumented workers are already here, with more coming every day. A key part of a reasonable solution is to create a path to citizenship for these workers.

The United States nor any other country is not obligated in any way to grant citizenship to any one......so stop the 'path to citizenship' propoganda.

I find nothing REASONABLE about amnesty.

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
Franklin D. Roosevelt