English Article 37

The Future??? Anything to look forward to? What President Bush should be concentrating on.

President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox held talks in Santiago, Chile at the recently held Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. It is time the Bush Administration, the Fox Administration, and, most importantly, the U.S. Congress to take concrete steps to solve our pressing migration and border issues.

President Bush declared that he has earned political capital he intends to spend. Led by Bush, the Republican Party made huge gains in attracting Hispanic and immigrant voters. Now those voters are anxious to see whether the trust they placed in the President will be rewarded with a recognition of how much immigrants contribute to the country, the sacrifices they make for their families, and the dignity they seek as participants in America' s future.

Beginning with Secretary of State Powell's cautious but unequivocal statements in Mexico on November 9 that the conditions for addressing immigration reform have improved in the United States, the White House is sending all the right signals that it is serious about making immigration

The measures put into place over the past 15 have clearly failed. Employer sanctions, increased border patrols, streamlined deportations, workplace raids, curtailed access to the legal system, and reduced access to basic public services were all supposed to curtail unauthorized migration from Mexico, Central America, and elsewhere. Instead, the biggest crackdown on unauthorized migration in recent history coincided with the biggest increase in the size of the undocumented immigrant population in American history.

It has become painfully clear that out dated U.S. immigration laws and enforcement strategies are no match for the 21st century, and indeed, create unintended consequences: millions of workers in the shadows and vulnerable to exploitation; decent employers undercut by unscrupulous competitors;

The U.S. government needs to try something new: bring U.S. immigration laws into line with U.S. economic realities. Immigrant workers have become an essential aspect of a labor market projecting a deficit of workers for decades to come. The problem, then, is not bad people violating good laws, but good people frustrated by bad laws.

The following elements are increasingly viewed as the best hope for making migration safe, legal, orderly, and over time, rare, instead of deadly, chaotic, and inevitable:

More worker visas: People come illegally because the legal immigration system is too complicated for many immigrants and the employers who hire them. Therefore, the U.S. must develop a new, innovative temporary worker program to widen legal channels for the future flow of needed workers.
More family visas: Millions of immigrants have been waiting patiently for legal immigration, but unless we reduce backlogs for close family members waiting to be reunited within realistic and enforceable limits, the incentives to immigrate illegally are too attractive.
Path to permanent residency: Create legal ways for undocumented immigrants and their families already established in the U.S. to obtain legal work permits. This program should include a meaningful path to permanent residence over time for those who choose to make America their home.
Realistic enforcement: When more of the immigration flow is directed through legal channels, our border and interior security resources can focus in on those who choose to come but don't want to be checked closely.
Protect American and foreign-born labor: Any temporary worker program must ensure that the rights of workers are protected, that immigrant workers are not used to drive wages down, and that basic safeguards in the workplace are enforced.
Address root causes: Get serious about cooperating with Mexico and other sending countries not only on security and enforcement concerns, but also on trade, aid, and remittance-related initiatives so that over time migration pressures from sending regions might be reduced.

The time has come for leadership from the Bush Administration and Congressional leaders from both parties to take concrete steps now on our way to addressing the regional migration and border security challenges in a comprehensive fashion.