Thread: Op-Ed: It may take three steps to fix our broken borders

(Warning: don't read during or just after eating...)

http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/or ... xml&coll=7

The Oregonian

It may take three steps to fix our broken borders
It's disappointingly clear now that Congress won't accomplish immigration reform, except in stages

Friday, September 08, 2006

It now appears unlikely that Congress will enact interlocking reforms to address illegal immigration. For those of us who've been cheering on a compromise, there's no way to deny or disguise our disappointment.

It's true that the House and Senate framed their approaches very differently, with the House focused on beefing up our border security while the Senate focused more on beefing up our economic productivity. But reconciling the two was a chance to show we need both.

Meanwhile, nothing illustrates the brokenness of the country's border policy better than those Americans who have taken enforcement of our immigration laws into their own hands. In Cornelius and at other day-labor pickup sites, for instance, some groups have begun monitoring -- and intimidating -- would-be laborers and employers to discourage the hiring of illegal workers. This is getting ugly.

Our state, after all, is still adjusting to new demographic realities. Between 1990 and 2000, Oregon's foreign-born population more than doubled, and in the past five years, it has grown again. It's now 344,575 people, or nearly 10 percent of Oregon's population. Many of these residents are not only legally entitled to be here, but also boast high-tech credentials and impressive degrees. But thousands of illegal immigrants are also in the mix.

Community leaders should make it clear, as President Bush has done, that it is wrong to demonize any of these workers. No president has a better visceral understanding of the need to defend our borders.

Yet as a former governor of Texas, Bush also understands that shoring up "border security" really involves three extremely complicated tasks:

Border enforcement. More vigorous border control, as well as cracking down on employers who rely on the illegal labor supply. Bush, in recent months, has stepped up both.

A guest worker program. To ensure that we don't sacrifice our economic productivity to border security, but secure both, we need to allow legal workers to cross the border -- in both directions. Among other things, that will help prevent industries dependent on illegal labor from staggering, even as they wean themselves from it.

A registry. Our security depends on finding out who is already here. Realistically, the only way to do that is to offer incentives for the nation's 12 million illegal residents to come forward, rather than forcing them to burrow more deeply underground. Ultimately, both the United States and Mexico would benefit from allowing these residents to go back and forth across the border legally and easily.

Ideally, we would do all three things at once, since they are all interconnected. But what has become clear in the past year is that Americans need assurances that tighter security at the border is having an effect before they will feel comfortable in confronting the other two sides of the triangle.

Disappointing as the absence of progress on illegal immigration has been, it would be wrong to characterize the past year of debate on this issue as a waste. Over time, growing numbers of Americans will realize the solution is triangular. And the president in office right now is well-positioned to do some triangulating.

FORGET IT! WE'RE NOT BUYING IT! NO MATTER HOW CHEAP IT IS!

LOL,

Pat, I agree with your smiley!
I love your computer smileys! Right to the point and exactly how we feel!

thanks, jak,

phred warned us and I had just eaten. Should have waited till mornin' to read it!

That is the most detailed summery I have every seen … It seems that every elected person is in on this and the hell with the Union … it make a person sick…

Ultimately, both the United States and Mexico would benefit from allowing these residents to go back and forth across the border legally and easily.

Why is that? And why just Mexico?

How about residents of El Salvador? Venezuela? Pakistan? China?

Do they get to come and go as they please as well?

Does the US also benefit when they come up here to drop an anchor baby?

I see that the Oregonian is still the same moronic, worthless rag it was when I lived up there.