Published on Tuesday, June 19, 2007

State delegation must push for immigration reform

It's a new week, and hopefully a new beginning, for stalled immigration reform legislation in Congress. Let's take the measure off life support and see a coalition of Washington state lawmakers lead the way to passage.

Bipartisan efforts are under way behind the scenes to line up enough support for the measure to be rescheduled for a floor vote in the Senate by the end of the week. The proposal was pulled from the floor earlier after a shaky compromise collapsed under a flurry of amendments. The new effort will see amendments limited to 11 on each side of the aisle.

Now it's time to quit the partisan posturing and political grandstanding and get the job done. Since comprehensive reform has a tremendous impact in agricultural areas such as Eastern Washington, we expect to see 4th District Congressman Doc Hastings on point demanding reform, followed closely by the 5th District's Cathy McMorris Rodgers. They can call on others with similar ties to lead an "agriculture coalition" if necessary.

The Eastern Washington representatives should be among the most knowledgeable in Congress about reform's impact on the agriculture sector. Hastings has represented the 4th District in Congress for more than 12 years. While McMorris Rodgers is in only her second two-year term, she was a state legislator from Colville for 10 years prior to that.

They should receive a lot of help from their Washington state colleagues in the House: fellow Republican Dave Reichert and Democrats Jay Inslee, Rick Larsen, Brian Baird, Norm Dicks, Jim McDermott and Adam Smith. Illegal immigration also has a huge impact in nonagricultural areas of the state, particularly in the construction and service industries.

Granted, action will start in the Senate, but the House delegation need not wait for that to happen. The members will know what's going to be on the Senate floor and they must actively push reform in the House even before the vote is taken in the Upper Chamber.

And, of course, this state's two senators, Democrats Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell must take up the challenge when the Senate resumes deliberations.

Our delegation has reason to be in the fight and muscles to flex. Democrats control both houses and thus have majority-party influence. Dicks ranks 11th among 230 House Democrats in seniority. We'd like to see him exercise some of that clout on an issue of critical importance to the state.

The compromise would grant millions of illegal immigrants lawful status, though not without penalties, create a guest-worker program, tighten border security and create new measures for weeding out illegal workers at job sites. It is backed by President Bush who last week pledged $4.4 billion in news spending for border security to revive the stalled legislation.

Comprehensive immigration reform has spawned extremist positions -- from those who see amnesty in any proposal as reason to oppose reform to those who would just as soon see the slate wiped clean for the estimated 12 million people now in the country illegally. Compromise reform must be found somewhere in the middle of those unrealistic extremes, and it must be found now.

As the topic is taken up again, we expect a lot of noise and even more leadership from our state's congressional delegation.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins and Bill Lee.
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