Hoystory

The Senate’s second attempt at comprehensive immigration reform died a particularly devastating death Thursday as Senators, seeing that the measure wouldn’t reach the 60-vote threshold, abandoned the ship like illegal aliens running out of a Swift meat-packing plant.

Something needs to be done about the millions of illegal immigrants in the United States — but something isn’t anything and that’s what the Senate bill appeared to be. The bill promised tougher enforcement mechanisms — a fence along the southern border and real, comprehensive checks on employee eligibility and employer compliance — in return for legalization/regularization of those illegal immigrants already here. There was something for both sides.

The major flaw was the order. All of those enforcement provisions are meaningless until the border fence and workplace checks are in place — both of those take time to create. The regularization measures, however would’ve taken effect the second the ink was dry on the president’s signature. Millions more illegal immigrants would’ve flooded across the border before a single additional mile of fence was built or before the first programmer was tasked with programming the workplace database.

Of course, that’s if you trust the goodwill and competence of the federal government. After all, we were promised a secure border and workplace enforcement the last time around — and look what we got.

The opponents of this bill have been caricatured and slandered as “nativists,” “bigots,” and quite a few other slurs — by members of both parties. How’s that for bipartisanship?

There were really two things underlying popular opposition to this bill — the first was the way it was handled. There was nothing more arrogant than Sen. John McCain’s desire to ram the bill through in less than a week. The egotism and self-importance that created McCain-Feingold was on display for all to see when the senior senator from Arizona proclaimed that the perfect bill had sprung fully formed from his forehead. Then the bill was resurrected — the 300+ page so-called “clay pigeon” amendment that supposedly was going to fix all of the problems was being written and re-written behind closed doors so that few of the Senators, let alone any interested members of the public, could read it. This was the openness and transparency politicos of both parties are always promising?

The second issue wasn’t “anti-Latino bigotry” or “nativism.” It was simply the desire that this time be the last time we need to do “comprehensive” immigration reform. The American public wants this done right; not quickly or conveniently or so President Bush or the Democrats in Congress have a feather to put in their caps, but right.

I’m not sure what the political ramifications of this will be. I’m not sure if this benefits Democrats or Republicans in the long run. I’m not yet sure what sort or resonance this issue will have in the 2008 presidential campaign.

What I do know is that yesterday the Congress did the right thing.