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Posted on Sun, Aug. 07, 2005

Border enforcement alone isn't a solution
OUR OPINION: FRACTURED IMMIGRATION SYSTEM NEEDS RATIONAL, COMPREHENSIVE REFORM


America's fractured immigration system is coming apart at the seams. U.S. employers need workers for jobs that Americans don't want. People from other countries are desperate for such work. As a consequence, the United States has become home to 11 million undocumented immigrants. The vast majority of them entered after 1990, streaming in even after the Border Patrol had tripled the number of agents, built fences and pushed the illegal flow to remote desert stretches on the Mexican border.

More enforcement alone will not solve the problem. The only realistic way for the country to gain control of immigration is to establish reasonable laws and enforce them evenly. Such a system is crafted in the Secure America bill (S 1033/HR 2330), introduced by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. Their proposal offers a realistic ceiling for future temporary ''guest workers'' and temporary status to undocumented workers already employed here.

Without such comprehensive reforms, immigration threatens to get out of hand. Consider, for example, these recent developments:

• In New Hampshire, police arrested and charged undocumented immigrants with criminal trespass, a state offense -- not an immigration violation -- after federal agents declined to deport the undocumented immigrants.

• Participants at the National Governors Association complained that the Real ID Act, which requires legal status to get driver's licenses, will push enormous federal costs to states by turning motor-vehicle bureaus into immigration-enforcement branches.

• At a recent Senate hearing, the head of the American Health Care Association testified that deporting undocumented health workers would jeopardize the quality of healthcare in the United States.

• In Miami-Dade County, a new state law requiring criminal background checks for vendors, contractors and other occasional school workers -- many of whom are undocumented immigrants -- is predicted to cause delays and possible chaos in construction projects.

Problems such as these reflect America's love-hate relationship with immigrants and are becoming increasingly common. While Americans largely understand the benefits that immigrant workers bring -- cheap food, labor and services -- they also want law and order. Therein is the rub: The current system of immigration law is so out of touch with reality that it is unenforceable and a hindrance to national security.

The upshot of stepped-up enforcement, for example, is that Mexicans who used to go home after working seasonal jobs now stay year round and bring or start families here. More immigrants die attempting to cross the desert, and more also get into the country undetected.

The cost of enforcement, particularly after 9/11, also has shot up. One report, by a pro-immigrant think tank, estimates it would cost at least $206 billion over five years to deport 10 million undocumented immigrants. That's $41.2 billion annually, more than the 2006 Homeland Security budget -- even if such mass deportations were logistically possible.

Sens. McCain's and Kennedy's Secure America bill would crack down on illegal workers and employers who violate the law. By reducing the numbers of immigrants in the shadows, it would free law enforcers to focus on terrorists and other criminal threats.

However, forcing undocumented immigrants to return to their homelands to return as legal guest workers simply won't fly. Who would risk deportation when he is already here and working? Yet that is proposed in an unrealistic bill by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

Both of these bills provide fodder for debating what is best for America and were at the center of the first serious hearing on comprehensive immigration reform in the Senate recently. Yet the Bush administration's key witnesses -- Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff -- were no shows. The administration's silence doesn't move the debate or lead to solutions. Unfortunately, President Bush has largely been absent on the issue lately.

Mr. Bush first proposed a guest-worker program 18 months ago, but he has yet to spell out specifics of the proposal. That's not good enough. As the nation awaits the president's leadership on immigration reform, the situation worsens by the day.