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http://www.miamiherald.com/851/story/194889.html

BY ARLEN SPECTER
www.specter.senate.gov

The charge of amnesty de-

feated comprehensive im-

migration reform in the Senate

this summer. It is too important

-- and there has been too much leg-

islative investment -- not to try again.

The time to do so is now.

Certainly the government should implement the provisions it has already enacted to improve border security and crack down on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. But the important additions on those subjects contained in the bill defeated in June will not be enacted without also dealing with the 12 million-plus undocumented immigrants and the guest-worker program.

So let's take a fresh look and try a narrower approach.

There is a consensus in Congress on most objectives and many remedies for immigration reform: more border patrols, additional fencing, drones and some form of a guest-worker program. Modern technological advances provide foolproof identification so employers can -- justifiably -- be severely sanctioned if they don't verify IDs and act to eliminate the magnet attracting illegal immigrants to penetrate the border. Yet Congress is unlikely to appropriate $3 billion for border security without dealing simultaneously with the illegal immigrants already here.

The main objective in legalizing the 12 million was to eliminate their fugitive status, allowing them to live in the United States without fear of being detected, deported or being abused by unscrupulous employers. We should consider a revised status for those 12 million people. Let them hold the status of those with green cards -- without the automatic path to U.S. citizenship that was the core component of critics' argument that reform efforts were really amnesty. Give these people the company of their spouses and minor children and consider other indicators of citizenship short of the right to vote (which was always the deal-breaker).

This approach may be attacked as creating an ''underclass'' inconsistent with American values, which have always been to give refuge to the ''huddled masses.'' But such a compromise is clearly better than leaving these people a fugitive class. People with a lesser status are frequently referred to as second-class citizens. Congress has adamantly refused to make the 12 million people already here full citizens, but isn't it better for them to at least be secure aliens than hunted and exploited?

Giving these people green-card status leaves open the opportunity for them to return to their native lands and seek citizenship through regular channels. Or, after our borders are secured and tough employer sanctions have been put in place, Congress can revisit the issue and possibly find a more hospitable America.

Some of the other refinements of the defeated bill can await another day and the regular process of Judiciary Committee hearings and markups. Changing the law on family unification with a point system can also be considered later. Now, perhaps, we could add green cards for highly skilled workers and tinker at the edges of immigration law, providing we don't get bogged down in endless debate and defeated cloture motions.

It would be refreshing if Congress, and the country, could come together in a bipartisan way to at least partially solve one of the big domestic issues of the day.