Thread: New York Times Editorial-The Immigration Deal

[quote]Editorial
The Immigration Deal

Published: May 20, 2007
The immigration deal announced in the Senate last week poses an excruciating choice. It is a good plan wedded to a repugnant one. Its architects seized a once-in-a-generation opportunity to overhaul a broken system and emerged with a deeply flawed compromise. They tried to bridge the chasm between brittle hard-liners who want the country to stop absorbing so many outsiders, and those who want to give immigrants — illegal ones, too — a fair and realistic shot at the American dream.

But the compromise was stretched so taut to contain these conflicting impulses that basic American values were uprooted, and sensible principles ignored. Many advocates for immigrants have accepted the deal anyway, thinking it can be improved this week in Senate debate, or later in conference with the House of Representatives. We both share those hopes and think they are unrealistic. The deal should be improved. If it is not, it should be rejected as worse than a bad status quo.

The good. Part of the compromise is strikingly appealing. It is the plan to give most of the estimated 12 million immigrants here illegally the chance to live and work without fear and to become citizens eventually. The conditions are tough, including a $5,000 fine, and a wait until certain “triggerâ€

It is the nation’s duty to welcome immigrants, to treat them decently and give them the opportunity to assimilate.

Since when is It the nations duty to welcome illegal aliens? hmmm...im shore we treat them decently already, free health care, education, no taxes. And what have they done? Not to long ago, they shot and killed an officer form my state, WI. To add insult to injury, my senators will probably vote this bill in