Thread: Sen. Jon Kyl talks about efforts to forge an immigration...

The 'Amnesty' Canard
Sen. Jon Kyl talks about efforts to forge an immigration compromise.

BY COLLIN LEVY
Saturday, June 9, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

WASHINGTON--For a man in the middle of the political storm of the moment, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl is pretty low key. In his office in the Hart Senate building this week, with phones ringing and staff scampering around an office under construction, the key player in the Senate's immigration reform legislation wants to help me set up my tape recorder. As it teeters precariously on the arm of the couch, his eyes flick back and forth. "You want to put that right down here?" he asks, indicating the middle of the coffee table--a far more sensible choice.

As the 2008 campaigns get underway, political compromise is not the first item on many agendas. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pulled the immigration bill from the floor until further notice. This is the season when most of the political establishment would rather keep controversial topics for stump speeches or direct mail campaigns. So it takes a certain kind of grit to do what Sen. Kyl has been doing, trying finding a third way on an issue where few in his own Republican party are willing to bargain.

In fact, Mr. Kyl's participation has always been a key part of the legislative strategy for the bill. The intra-GOP fighting over immigration will only get more furious as we move toward the 2008 House and presidential races. And the administration, without a lot of political capital of its own, will need him more than ever. With 20 years in Congress, he's built a reputation as a go-to guy on border security--tough, but without the tinge of nativism that afflicts some hardliners. As a border state senator, he also understands the anger. "These are not bigots out there, these are my friends and neighbors," he explains.

Winning over conservatives to his compromise version of immigration reform did not prove an easy task in this round. Sometimes the only thing conservatives have seen to recommend it is the fact that it bears Mr. Kyl's imprimatur. So what can we learn from the debate so far?





Chief among the complaints has been the charge that the immigration compromise would offer "amnesty" to 12 million illegal immigrants. Law-and-order conservatives say these people are lawbreakers and shouldn't be rewarded for cheating. That's a position Mr. Kyl himself took in his last election. What does he say now about amnesty?
"Everyone has their own definition, I have found," he says, "I think it is a dead-end debate. We have tried to do as many things as we can to ensure that for those that get to stay, they pay a price, and I don't think it's amnesty. For those who say, 'This bill is amnesty, we shouldn't pass it,' one of my responses is, 'OK, so do you like what we have?'"

He means the current system, in which millions of immigrants are here illegally, and Washington does nothing about it. "This is de facto amnesty," he says.

This reality principle is a point he returns to frequently in our conversation. "There are a lot of things in the bill I'm still not happy with . . . It's impossible to make the existing system work so we have to change the law, and changing the law requires Democratic votes, so you have to make concessions to Democrats."

Among those concessions conservatives attacked this week were the bill's guest-worker provisions. These are seen as institutionalizing a system that allows foreign workers to filch jobs from Americans. A frequent conservative mantra is "enforcement-first." Finding ways legally to accommodate demand for immigrant workers can come later, if ever. "As a practical matter, from a political standpoint, you can't have enforcement first. Democrats won't allow it," Mr. Kyl says. "You have to combine some things that they want along with the stronger enforcement."

One of the senator's favorite enforcement provisions isn't among the tough and catchy-sounding ones, but it does provide a window into how he sees the issue, and why he thinks the bill will help.

"One of the most overlooked provisions," he tells me, is the electronic employee verification system--a plan which would require businesses to send the names of their employees through a computer system with the federal government that would verify instantly whether the employee was a legal worker.

"The employee verification system is really the complement to the border. You can try to prevent people coming in, but there is a magnet of employment. Resourceful people can find ways to get here. So if you can shut off that magnet of illegal employment, that complements the work you are doing at the border. A lot of businesses just want to have a legal way of doing things . . . and the employer now has a way to make the law work."

In Arizona, the economic realities are clear and immigrants are part of them. Yuma County, for example, is right next door to Mexico. "As the border has become increasingly enforced in that area, it has become increasingly difficult for growers to get the labor they need there, to get their lettuce picked. Every bit of lettuce consumed in the United States is from Yuma County Arizona, and it's huge. There is billions of dollars worth, and it's a big deal," Sen. Kyl says.

"Everyone says enforcement first, and that's important, but in Yuma County, what that means is you are basically going to send that crop, the melons and the tomatoes and the lettuce . . . to Mexico. So when people complain about outsourcing, well, you're outsourcing a billion-dollar industry because we don't have a system that enables the people to get the work that they need."

Mr. Kyl has also faced a strong current of skepticism about the bill from those who think it looks like a rehash of the 1986 immigration law signed by President Reagan, which many now blame for the current state of affairs. That experience left many millions of Americans extraordinarily distrustful when politicians come from the federal government to talk about "immigration reform." Of the fierce opposition, he says, "I think it is less a reaction to the bill, because I don't frankly think working people are going to sit down and read a complicated bill. It's more about the fact that they are frustrated with their government's ability to enforce the law in the past. And they don't have any confidence in the government doing it in the future."

The pressure has been unrelenting, in Washington and back in Arizona, as Republican groups have threatened to mount a primary challenge to anyone who supports the bill. Because he was just re-elected, Sen. Kyl is somewhat insulated from immediate threats, but protesters have made his likeness into a piñata and waved signs saying "Recall Kyl" outside his office in Phoenix. As the issue drags on through the summer, many local groups will have time to organize and prepare for the next time it's introduced.

As long as the issue remains unresolved, Sen. Kyl also sees a danger that, because of the passions aroused, states will begin to mint their own policies on immigrants and guest workers--"which isn't good for our national economy. A company doing business all around the country doesn't want to have to deal with different state laws that are hard to comply with. So that's another reason for the federal government to try to act."

In Washington, the election season is only going to make things harder going forward: "I see some Republican candidates who might have supported something like this deciding for political reasons that they have to be tough against amnesty," he admits.

Yet the vitriol doesn't always show up at the ballot box--some of the most hardcore opponents of illegal immigration lost their Arizona races last year. "People are very upset and angry and frustrated about this," Mr. Kyl says. But it's also an issue "you cannot win" because voters are conflicted about what they want. "There is only one reason to do what I am trying to here, and that is to get a problem solved that has got to be solved."

I note that Democrats have played things closer to the vest so far, though they would seem to have as many problems with the current bill as Republicans. How big a role are unions and Latino groups playing behind the scenes? "They are playing a very large role. A lot of Democrats are being very quiet about this," Sen. Kyl says. Before the bill was yanked, he adds: "They [were] working the amendment issues pretty hard. I think the people that are complaining about amnesty just want to kill the whole thing, whereas the other groups really do want a bill. They just want it to look a lot more like what they want."

Sen. Reid's move to pull the bill this week was also part of the Democrats' playbook. By letting Republicans argue things out publicly, while keeping mum themselves, Democrats could make it appear that GOP differences were responsible for the failure to accomplish anything.

The short-term tactics may be clever but Sen. Kyl takes a longer view. "Ten years from now, if we have a good immigration bill and it took a couple of extra days to get there, no one will know what he did during those two or three days that were so important. Better let people have their say . . . and let people have their shot at it so no one can say this was rushed through in the dead of night." On Thursday, Sen. Kyl voted in favor of giving the process a few more days, so more amendments could be considered.





Still, Sen. Kyl has never pretended that his support for the bill is unconditional, and it's likely his limits will be tested the next time the bill is on the floor. What would be a deal killer in his eyes? "Whether some of the so-called killer amendments pass," he says, "If they do, then I'm gone. Those are deal breakers. We've eliminated chain migration (which gives preference to family members of current immigrants), and if these amendments try to bring that back through the backdoor, then those are deal breakers. Temporary means temporary. There's already been one whack at that and there may be other efforts to allow temporary workers to stay here permanently and that would be a deal breaker."
Mr. Kyl also knows missing this opportunity will be costly, as the months go by without reform. "The lack of respect for the rule of law, it has a very corrosive effect. The lawlessness, the violence--all of those things tell me that sitting by and doing nothing is not an option. As hard as it is to make a political deal with Democrats, they are now in the majority and there is the possibility that they could pass something that could be really, really harmful. It requires that somebody like me get in the game and try my best to make sure it's a balanced bill."

A glance at his watch, a farewell, and Mr. Kyl is halfway down the hall before I can collect my umbrella. When you're the one people are counting on, there's no time to waste.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial ... =110010190

This fellow Kyl acts like a man who has recently undergone a frontal lobotomy. The lights are on, but nobody is home.

He means the current system, in which millions of immigrants are here illegally, and Washington does nothing about it. "This is de facto amnesty," he says.

This guy and McCain are using the term "de facto amnesty" because the federal govt. lacks the will to enforce immigration laws. Well we don't want nothing done. We don't want immigration reform. We want our laws enforced and our border secure.