International Herald Tribune Editorial: The U.S. immigration deal

International Herald Tribune Editorial: The U.S. immigration deal
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
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 hard-liners who want the United States 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 share those hopes but also 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 illegal immigrants 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 conditions on border security are met and immigration backlogs are cleared. It requires heads of households to apply in their home countries, sending them on a foolish "touchback" pilgrimage. That is a large concession to Republican hard-liners, but they, too, have come a long way: Consider that last year the House of Representatives wanted to brand the 12 million and those who gave them aid as criminals. A winding and expensive path to citizenship is still a path.

The bad: The deal badly erodes two bedrock principles: that employers can sponsor immigrants to fill jobs and that citizens and legal permanent residents have the right to sponsor family members - young children and spouses, of course, but also their grown children, siblings and parents. The proposal would eliminate several categories of family-based immigration, and it would distribute green cards according to a point-based system that shifts the preference toward those who have education and skills but not necessarily roots in America. Supporters say that the proposal has been tweaked to give some weight to kinship, and that many immigrants would still be able to bring loved ones in. But the repellent truth is that countless families will be split apart while America picks the immigrants it considers better than the poor, ones the country used to welcome without question.

The awful: The agreement fails most dismally in its temporary worker program. "Temporary means temporary" has been a Republican mantra, motivated by the thinly disguised impulse to limit the number of workers. The deal calls for the creation of a new underclass that could work for two years at a time, six at the most, but never put down roots. Immigrants who come under that system - who play by its rules, work hard and gain respect and job skills - should be allowed to stay if they wish. But this deal closes the door. It offers a way in but no way up, a shameful repudiation of American tradition that will encourage exploitation - and more illegal immigration.

It is painful, for many reasons, to oppose this immigration deal. It is especially difficult because lives are in the balance. No amount of hostile legislation is going to drive the immigrants away. A collapsed deal could put off reform for years, and encourage more of this cruelty.

It is America's duty to welcome immigrants, to treat them decently and give them the opportunity to assimilate. But if it does so according to the outlines of the deal being debated this week, the change will come at too high a price: the repudiation of generations of immigration policy, the weakening of families and the creation of a system of modern peonage within U.S. borders.