Immigration reform will be in small, slow steps

Thursday, August 23, 2007

There was something for everybody to hate in the compromise immigration "reform" bill narrowly defeated this summer in the U.S. Senate.

But that doesn't mean the pressure for changes has gone away, as the Bush administration proved when it announced a crackdown by executive order against employers of illegal immigrants earlier this month. For sure, that pressure won't ease unless the new campaign or something like it ends the enticement of illegals here with jobs and other benefits.

On the contrary, the longer today's talk-tough-but-do-little practices continue, the more furious become groups like the border-patrolling Minutemen and others who want the Mexican border closed. Similarly, the longer things remain unchanged, the angrier grow labor unions and others disturbed by the obvious exploitation of illegal immigrant workers by American employers who claim they can't find U.S. citizens to take their jobs.

Democrats in Congress stunned those immigrant advocates when, led by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, they agreed to give alleged employer needs precedence over reunited families in deciding who would be allowed into the U.S.A.

So neither side would have liked the defeated compromise, which proposed allowing "guest workers" in at low wages and in quantities set by employers while it also sought a convoluted, expensive system for illegal immigrants to move toward citizenship.

The compromise's demise also left both sides unhappy. They may be relieved and keeping relatively quiet today, but not for long if the Bush move fails. And it well may because it won't cover anywhere near all the businesses that depend on undocumented workers, especially not those who pay their workers in cash.

All of which means change will come to the immigration system, but nothing as comprehensive as the bill that was defeated, with all its wrinkles and contradictions. Change also will not come quickly, most likely no earlier than next year earliest.

Here are some of the likeliest coming moves, all foreshadowed by this year's failed bill:

— Authorizing the hiring of hundreds more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to begin cracking down en masse on employers of illegals. Despite Bush's orders, ICE, at the moment, doesn't have a large enough force to do a thorough job and would need thousands more agents.

— This would be a popular move among those who want to get rid of illegal immigrants without going through a massive deportation program. It's what Colorado's Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, now running as a single-issue presidential candidate, says he wants. Trancredo is on record saying that mass expulsions of the approximately 12 million illegals now here would be impractical. "Attrition through enforcement," he called it in one interview. "If people cannot get the thing they came for — a job — they go home."

— A guest-worker program. Yes, almost everyone knows that time-limited work visas usually don't work well because so many of those using them stay on illegally after their visas expire. But from the apricot groves of California to the apple orchards of the upper Midwest, farmers have been crying for two years about finding too few migrant workers to harvest all their crops.

— Because those farmers are a powerful lobby and because plenty of factories and packinghouses make similar claims about a shortage of American workers to do rough labor, chances are Congress will create some sort of guest-worker program within the next year or two. The challenges will be to provide screening against possible terrorists and other criminals, find a way to track migrants after they enter this country in order to make sure they don't overstay their time, and to make sure the purported needs of employers are genuine and not merely a ruse to save money via ultra-low wages.

— Border enforcement. It's almost a sure bet that Congress will soon authorize more money to expand the electronic "fence" now under construction. This is politically safe, as it tramples on none of the major interests contending about this issue — employers, unions, advocates for equal pay for immigrants and immigrant opponents who claim the newcomers deprive Americans of jobs.

It is a feel-good measure that would let lawmakers of all stripes go home saying they've actually done something about illegal immigration. But whether fences or the electronic devices now planted on parts of the border actually deter illegal crossings is a question yet to be answered.

In short, anyone interested in immigration reform had better get used to the idea it will come slowly and in small pieces, rather than in one sweeping bill as was tried this year. But because the demand for change is so high, more changes will surely follow the recent Bush move.

— Thomas D. Elias, of Santa Monica, is a columnist and author. His e-mail address is tdelias@aol.com.

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