Thread: Signs of Hope on Immigration

Editorial
Signs of Hope on Immigration


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Published: November 20, 2006

The political earthquake in Washington has knocked loose some of the big obstacles to fixing the immigration system. A decent solution is now there for the taking, if President Bush and the newly Democratic Congress are willing to grab it.

It won’t be easy. Some of the debate’s loudest shouters, liars and dead-horse beaters were ushered by voters from the room — people like J. D. Hayworth and Randy Graf in Arizona, John Hostettler in Indiana and Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania. But the public is still in a prickly mood. All those shrill Republican ads about Mexicans stealing your Social Security failed as an electoral strategy, but that doesn’t mean politicians always lose by being immigration hawks. Voters approved tough ballot measures. In Arizona, they made English the official language and restricted illegal immigrants’ ability to sue, receive bail and qualify for benefits.

And except for the losers on the border-fixated fringe, not many in the restrictionist camp seem particularly chastened by the election. Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, an opponent of the comprehensive reform bill that passed the Senate this year, won his race, as did several new Democrats who ran as immigration hard-liners. Local lawmakers in Texas and other states are still going after illegal immigrants with fervor.

The roots of a divisive, grinding immigration debate have not gone away. But it is crucial that the Democrats find their voice. The effort to revive immigration reform should start in the Senate. There is a decent bill under the barnacled hulk of legislation that passed the Senate last May. It used to be called McCain-Kennedy, before other senators tacked on tough-posing amendments that made it fundamentally unworkable and unjust. The Senate should strip those away, like the ones that divide immigrants into three arbitrary tiers of worthiness and needlessly force those seeking legal status to trek to a border state to apply for it.

The principles that guided the original McCain-Kennedy bill are those that should guide the coming reform effort: laws should be enforced at the border and workplace, fairly and evenhandedly; temporary worker programs must not be used to create a permanent official underclass; and any reform must be designed to work and not just create another smothering bureaucracy.

Immigration remains a high-voltage issue that Congress may be too timid or distracted to touch. The new Democratic leaders, including Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, have conspicuously not listed immigration among their most urgent priorities. Even Senator John McCain, who is an architect of the most reasonable bill out there but also has presidential primaries on his mind, spent a lot of time this fall stumping for misguided restrictionists like Mr. Graf. We hope he and his moderate colleagues have the integrity to honor their sensible immigration views now that the dismal ’06 campaign is done.

Many voters who scorned Republicans over immigration reacted as you would expect them to after being mocked and exploited by a party that elevated the issue into an urgent crisis and then offered nothing to solve it but faux hearings, strident campaign ads and a pretend fence. The same fate may await any Democrats who posture, deceive and dawdle over immigration reform in the next Congress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/opini ... ref=slogin

Why does the NY Times hate America so much?

Originally Posted by TimBinh

Why does the NY Times hate America so much?

Good Question...

temporary worker programs must not be used to create a permanent official underclass

So we should have a temporay underclass of slaves? Is that what they are saying?

The NY Times is part of the Globalist Stragey to end the United States. I guess they "hope" New York will be the new world capital and they its "voice" but unfortunately that decision has already been made and it is Geneva, Switzerland where the World Trade Organization is located.

I think people too many people who live in New York and work for the NY Times never leave New York; never see America; just flit from Coop to Office to Restaurant to Bar to Boutique to Art Opening and then back to the Coop (cooperatives that cost around $1 million a flat and are the most exclusive people in New York - the residents actually vote on whether to let you move in or not).

So it's not surprising that these high class hypocrites care only about controlling who lives next to them but care not one bit who floods the rest of our country in violation of our laws. They are so caught up in their own efforts of excluding people from their midst and so well along in securing their own personal isolation, they've no time left or brains left to exclude illegals from the rest of the nation for the rest of the nation.

We have to establish our own "coops" without any help from the likes of the New York Times.

Everyone who has a paid subscription should of course cancel it post haste.