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Editorial

Immigration haze

The illegal immigration issue isn't going away, and true leadership demands practical, forthright decisions

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Congress and the White House - even the occupants before the current gang that can't shoot straight - have long treated the immigration issue like the proverbial hot potato. Much hot, hazy wind has blown 'round the Potomac, but virtually nothing has been accomplished. Now, in the midst of a crackdown on illegal (or undocumented) immigrants, The New York Times reports that some businesses that employ immigrant workers are fighting back, sort of through the rear door.

While local law enforcement, including some sheriffs' offices in North Carolina, are getting money to find illegal immigrants and set the process of deportation in motion, the federal government keeps on waffling.

The simplest position advocated by some is that if people are in the country illegally, then they need to be sent home. Yet there are millions and millions of illegal immigrants -- 12 to 14 million was the figure not long ago, but no one really knows. Deporting that many people is obviously an impossible task.

Then there's another problem: many businesses rely on illegal immigrants to do agricultural or construction labor, and other types of work as well, and they don't want to lose the laborers (who sometimes are exploited with low wages and poor working conditions). They also don't want to face sanctions for hiring them -- losing their licenses, for example. So they are among those resisting the notion of penalties and in effect fighting the crackdown. It's as if they want the government to wink at the problem.

Some moderates -- there are Democrats and Republicans all over the issue -- would like to have "guest worker" programs or a means whereby illegal immigrants could earn legal status and citizenship through a rigorous and lengthy process. Go to the other end of the philosophical spectrum and you'll hear arguments about problems among illegal immigrants with crime and drugs as reasons for loading up the buses.

The next president obviously needs to make addressing the issue a top priority. We have had inaction long enough, which has left illegal immigrants, many of whom have families and are hard-working people, in limbo, and has left our immigration laws trapped in an awkward contradiction no one can explain or justify.

Our political leaders failed to foresee the influx of illegal immigrants. Then they failed to address the issue when the debate was in its early stages. The issue is far beyond simplistic, right and wrong positions now. Numbers must be assessed, problems documented and analyzed, debate held in a reasonable and enlightened way. And this without ignoring or dismissing one view or another -- that those who want to assimilate illegal immigrants are all bleeding hearts, or that those who want to enforce the letter of immigration laws are all narrow-minded opportunists.

A real leader must seek common ground, and a real solution, not just a political one.

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