Thread: Try, try again

Try, try again
Oct. 5, 2007 12:00 AM

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... i1-05.html

Conventional wisdom says Congress will not try immigration reform again before the 2008 presidential election.

The political and practical realities in Arizona make this unacceptable.

Arizona is the nation's gateway for illegal border crossings and deaths.

At the end of summer, the death toll along the border was 29 percent higher than last year, according to estimates by county medical examiners.

These deaths are "becoming commonplace and even increasingly accepted by the public, by the media and by officials," the Rev. Robin Hoover of Humane Borders said at a ceremony in Tucson last weekend.

In Phoenix, Police Chief Jack Harris decried the way the recent murder of a police officer by an illegal immigrant was used by talk radio "to promote a personal, racist political agenda."

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon says the rage has moved from "undocumented to Mexican to Hispanic to anybody with color."

Arizona is a leader in the national trend of piecemeal local attempts to "do something" about a problem in which hard-working people are being demonized.

This state's two-strikes employer-sanctions law is seen as such a threat to business that the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, the U.S Chamber and other business groups joined a lawsuit to stop it.

Employers have no reliable way to verify employment status of workers, but the law makes them vulnerable to complaints from anyone. Anonymously. Two mistakes can cost a business license.

The law doesn't go into effect until January, but it has led to taunts and threats against Latino workers from those who equate speaking Spanish with illegal immigration, employers say.

When it comes to protecting the public from real danger, the illogic of the current non-system is breathtaking.

The Border Patrol focuses on deporting illegal immigrants who have a criminal history, but the criminals come right back. Erik Jovani Martinez, who shot police Officer Nick Erfle, was brought to this country as a baby, grew into a thug and was deported. He was back within two months.

The sheer number of illegal border crossers coming here to work makes it easy for criminals to blend in and difficult for Border Patrol to single them out. The same is true in our cities. The vast underground of undocumented workers provides camouflage for criminals.

The huge number of people who want to stop illegal immigration also unwittingly provide cover to vocal and vitriolic groups that preach intolerance and have cowed Congress. These nativists have made enforcement look like the only available option.

As border walls and barriers are going up, tunnels are going under. Not only is it a daunting task to keep fences in repair, but the number of tunnels being discovered has increased. Three were found just this summer in Nogales.

The 28-mile stretch of high-tech "virtual fence" along Arizona's southern border is behind schedule and glitch-ridden.

The expansion of the enforcement strategy to federal raids on workplaces is viscerally satisfying to some, but it is also a narrow strategy that will not reduce the demand for migrant labor.

Enforcement-only is a failed strategy. It did not win the congressional debate, except by default.

In addition to enforcement, immigration policy has to provide a reliable way to identify legal workers, a guest-worker program to meet labor needs and a mechanism to bring the current undocumented workforce out of the shadows.

Congress quit too soon.

The practical and political realities in Arizona demonstrate the enormous need for Congress to pluck up the courage to try again.



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I just posted it
I didnt write it
Greg

Arizona is a leader in the national trend of piecemeal local attempts to "do something" about a problem in which hard-working people are being demonized.

Yea right the same hard working people who are stealing ID's living 15 families in a house built for one. The same hard working people flashing gang signs and dragging our flag in the street. Or maybe these are the hard workers who have no regaurd for the English laugage. This article is trash!

Congress quit too soon.

Doesn't matter to this pea-brain that Americans DO NOT want illegal invading us! The pro-illegal mentality does not care what the American people want. Their goal is thievery and we do not have to allow it!