http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... -1/ZONES04

July 9, 2006


my view: Greg Garrison
Pence plan for illegal immigrants makes sense

For years I have been frustrated and ever more angered by the awful impact that the flood of illegal immigrants has had in our community.

Social services institutions choked beyond their capacity to the exclusion of our own needy citizens, an underground society that buys no car insurance, pays no taxes and fills the courts with their problems and incessant run-ins with the law all have long since convinced me that our government's default was inexcusable. And the fact that illegal immigrants have taken over the drug trade and upped the ante in both quantity and variety of controlled substances is just bitter icing on the cake.

But one powerful reality cannot be ignored. With 12 (or so) million of them here, packing them up and shipping off to their various points of origin is simply not going to happen. Not reasonable, feasible, and, I finally had to acknowledge, in some cases not moral.

It remains ultimately true, all the protests of The Wall Street Journal and its pals in the Reconquista movement to the contrary notwithstanding, that our southern border can and must be secured -- read "closed" to illegals of every description. However, it is also clear that, once that is accomplished, we have no choice but to deal fairly, humanely and effectively with the otherwise non-law-breaking folk who make up the majority of that number who are still here. We are told that, before border crackdowns began (I know, you're wondering "what crackdown"?), most illegal immigrants stayed about 21/2 years or so. Now that number is rising. And we also know that there are many who, however illegally they entered the country, have gotten taxpayer identification numbers and paid taxes on their earnings while here. Others have integrated themselves into society without breaking the law and have been here so long their kids have grown up as Americans.

So what do we do with all of them? U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana says send 'em all back for long enough to register accurately and honestly according to biometric protocols that will permit effective tracking once they return. They get two years to work and can leave and come back for an additional two if they behave themselves.

Beyond that, other U.S. regulations and quotas will have to be established for dealing with naturalization of all who apply, whether "guest worker" or otherwise. We should expect that the current unrealistic figures for this part will be adjusted, but that's OK, because implicit in all that is the adoption of English as the primary language, learning of the required basics of American civics and proof that all who apply have not violated the criminal law.

Pence's idea for a time-limited guest-worker program paid for by the workers, that requires them to be accountable and to report timely (with immediate revocation being the sanction), is simply not some kind of closet or stealth amnesty as some have charged. If the worker can stay only two years and must leave to apply for more time, that leaves the Immigration and Naturalization Service with the authority to say no if circumstances so dictate. And if they misbehave, it's the end -- period.

Of course, the genius in what the congressman proposes is the infusion into this whole mess of the notion that these people are not entitled to permanent status just because they have managed to stay below the radar for years at a time. But the fatal flaw in the legislative ointment has nothing whatever to do with any of this but has everything to do with the real enforcement that is undertaken and accomplished going forward. If we mean it, follow through on it and on the concomitant imperative of border security (again, read "closed"), it works. If not, it's the 1980s all over again and we just get 20 million more non-English-speaking illegals.

Spanish signage in the airports and all manner of government buildings, free education, medical care, food stamps and welfare for those who break our laws to get here must end; but what Mike Pence has suggested goes far -- and does so with common sense and his signature devotion to the sovereignty of the United States. And it is the only plan on the table that might work.