Thread: CO-EDITORIAL New roadblock for immigration?

EDITORIAL New roadblock for immigration?

The Denver Post
June 29, 2009 Monday

Business and labor need to find common ground on guest worker program so immigration reform can move forward.

The nation's leaders have begun to talk about immigration reform again, but the latest discussion comes wrapped in news both good and bad.

The good news is that it's being discussed at all by the president and Congress, considering how volatile the topic is and how many other major issues are on the public policy table.

The bad news is that even at this preliminary stage, the debate has taken a divisive turn, with business and labor interests splitting over the idea of expanding the guest worker program. The labor side is opposed.

The Post has long supported a broader guest worker program, and we can't see how any immigration reform plan could succeed without one.

Most illegal immigrants come to this country from Mexico looking for jobs. Regardless of how much the government beefs up border security - which, certainly, must be done - if there is no functioning temporary worker program, illegal immigrants still will have strong incentive to sneak over the border.

Effective immigration reform needs to be more than just tight borders, an effective guest worker program and a reasonable path to citizenship. It must be wide-ranging in order to succeed, and the White House cannot allow the reform effort to be hijacked by political factions that mold one piece or another, creating more problems than they solve.

President Obama reopened the debate earlier this month when he told a Hispanic prayer breakfast that he is committed to passing wide-ranging reform.

"For those who wish to become citizens, we should require them to pay a penalty and pay taxes, learn English, go to the back of the line behind those who played by the rules," he said at a meeting of the Esperanza National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast. "That is the fair, practical and promising way forward."

That summary, with the addition of a guest worker program, a tightly controlled border and accountability for businesses that don't take reasonable steps to avoid hiring illegals, sounds to us like the rough outline of workable legislation.

Now, can anyone cobble together enough votes to make it happen so the effort doesn't collapse as it did in 2006 and 2007?

Rahm Emanuel, the president's chief of staff, said last Thursday that Obama and his supporters in Congress do not, at this point, have enough votes to pass immigration reform.

As Senate Democrats began talking about reform last week, they floated plans about another sure-to-be controversial element, a secure identification verification system that includes fingerprints or an eye scan.

We want to see the exact shape of that proposal before taking a position, but it's clear the country needs to have better protections against workers who use fake documents to gain employment and businesses that accept them. A secure form of identification is a must.

Not having such a system ensured that the last major reform legislation in 1986 was doomed to failure.

Immigration reform will not be quick, easy or without heated debate. But it is something that the president and lawmakers must take on and we hope there's strong leadership from both sides of the aisle.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/En ... 35&start=5

We don't need guest workers, we need jobs for Americans.

Example of Stupidity: If the gov't expects us to pay taxes they better help us get and/or keep jobs because even if they give the SOB illegals Amnesty, they will continue to work under the table and the gov't won't be able to squeeze a dime out of them.