Immigration

Immigration has made it back onto the Bush rostrum of topics. About time too.

"We're going to secure the border by catching those who enter illegally and hardening the border to prevent illegal crossings," he said. "We're going to strengthen enforcement of our immigration laws within our country. And together with Congress, we're going to create a temporary-worker program that will take pressure off the border, bring workers from out of the shadows and reject amnesty." He added, "Rewarding those who have broken the law would encourage others to break the law and keep pressure on our border." Bush also stressed the need for greater workplace enforcement, which the business community staunchly opposes. "Listen, there's a lot of opinions on this proposal. I understand that. But people in this debate must recognize that we will not be able to effectively enforce our immigration laws until we create a temporary-worker program," he said.

The amnesty issue is the hardest one to deal with. The numbers I've seen state more than 11 million illegals in the country. That's a huge number of people to have to ferret out and remove, especially when many of them are likely already part of communities with families. The difficulty of allowing those that have broken the law to become citizens is a real one. The amnesty proposed by McCain/Kennedy would be another on the pile that fail to make any legal boundaries and make enforcement even more impractical. But what would be a good solution?

The temporary-worker program is a good idea, in that it will document the resident aliens coming in for work, just like those coming in legally from all other countries. The specifics of such a program are still unknown though. Especially since they would need to get through congress.

I'm hoping that at least a start of this discussion will begin the move forward.