Posted 06:49 PM ET
investors.com

Former President Bush demonstrated leadership Tuesday in Dallas by urging the U.S. to streamline its citizenship process instead of focusing solely on illegal immigration enforcement. This deserves attention.

The last Republican to win a presidential election couldn't have better framed the issue in light of the GOP's perceived problems in winning over immigrant voters, who have in part been blamed for the Republicans' electoral defeat last month.

"America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time," Bush told a conference sponsored by the Dallas Fed and the George W. Bush Institute.

Immigrants come with "new skills and new ideas" and "fill a critical gap in the labor market" and "restore our soul," the former president said, recognizing that being an immigrant is a dramatic, thrilling second chance in life for most immigrants, which can only be soured by hearing angry rhetoric on illegal immigration.

For that, Bush's call to improve the legal path to citizenship was a valuable new direction that hasn't been sufficiently advocated in the last election.

Entrepreneurs, of whom immigrants already form an outsized share, should find it easier to come here legally than illegally. Unfortunately, that's not the case now.

Fact is, the legal immigration system is rife with costs, waits, errors, abusive behavior, sloth and inefficiency — the legacy of government work and the unaccountable public employee unions that control it. And the problem is only getting worse.

Start with fees, which fund all but 2% of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service: In 1985, the year before President Reagan announced his grand amnesty, the fee to become a citizen was $35. Today, it's $680.

Immigrants who use lawyers pay upward of $2,000 or more. Yet waits in line remain six to nine months, even as USCIS employees now number 18,000.

Apparently, that's what the fee hikes are going for.

"You hike fees in order to fund unneeded hiring, which in turn funds the need for more senior positions," wrote an unnamed former GS-14 on the job-hunter's website Glassdoor. "It's the only way anyone can get promoted. Bunch of people sitting around doing nothing and making $100,000 a year."

It was common sentiment at Glassdoor: "Promotion potential is based on tenure within the federal system, not on knowledge or abilities. Federal retention rules make it nearly impossible for non-performers to be removed from the system," wrote a former analyst.

"Red tape everywhere," the ex-GS-14 wrote. "Takes weeks to accomplish something that takes only minutes in the private sector."

All of this nightmarishness gives would-be immigrants the short end of the stick and makes applying for citizenship less attractive than the alternatives, which, to some include illegal immigration.

What's more, the 124-page "Welcome to the United States: A guide to new immigrants" put out by USCIS tells immigrants how to claim welfare benefits, but offers nothing to entrepreneurs.

In the last week, USCIS has launched a blog for immigrant entrepreneurs, and earlier this year held a Silicon Valley confab to encourage them. But this is a sign of how little the feds have done for them, including the very important high-skill workers who should be able to come here on H1B visas with no trouble.

Low-skilled workers have a role here too, and deserve a guest-worker program that will give them the freedom to come and go from the U.S. without the family breakups seen now. Labor unions have halted that, too, even as they multiplied the red tape.

The GOP should pick up the torch for this long-festering problem to encourage legal immigration and citizenship. The Obama administration is never going to correct the real problem with immigration, which is bureaucrats, not immigrants.

It's up to the GOP to do that and seize once again its premier role as the party of hope for all immigrants.

GOP Should Reform Immigration Bureaucrats, Not Immigrants - Investors.com