City Journal
Our Broken Immigration Record
A history of violated promises has shattered the public’s trust.
Steven Malanga
5 July 2007

In the aftermath of the immigration bill’s defeat, supporters on both the left and the right have wondered how compromise legislation, containing so many proposals that Americans seemed to back in polls, could have won so little public support. Many of the bill’s backers seem to be missing the point: what killed it was not opposition to any single proposal, but rather the public’s overall cynicism on immigration. Ordinary citizens simply don’t trust our leaders on this subject any longer, and until the president—some president—and the Congress gain back their trust, it’s unlikely that we’ll have any “comprehensiveâ€