Sun Post (Manteca, CA)
June 16, 2007
President's clout is 'all used up'
By Froma Harrop
PROVIDENCE - Immigration reform was to be George W. Bush's legacy.
It's now clear that he won't have a legacy to stand on.
The president's visit to the Capitol was supposed to restart the
immigration "grand bargain," currently in a mid-air stall. As is his
habit, he painted scary scenarios if things don't go his way. (Note
how he lists the dire consequences of pulling out of the mess he
created in Iraq.) On immigration, he warns that "the status quo is
unacceptable."
And we can thank him for that unacceptable status quo. As America's
chief executive, it was Bush's duty to enforce the laws against hiring
illegal immigrants.
And for seven years, he did next to nothing. No, he did worse than
nothing. In 2004, he publicly vowed to "match any willing worker with
any willing employer," thus ending the tradition that stressed the
interests of American labor in making immigration policy. The message
was heard as intended, setting off a new surge of illegal entrants.
One recalls the famous line in the movie "Touch of Evil," when Orson
Welles, a corrupt U.S. cop, asks Marlene Dietrich, a fortune-telling
madam in Tijuana, to read his future. "You haven't got any," she says
ominously. "Your future is all used up."
The same can be said of Bush's future as a leader on immigration
reform. The president's credibility is all used up by his conscious
strategy to neglect immigration enforcement - part of a shameful drive
to cheapen American labor for the advantage of business.
Bush also pulled a bait-and-switch. He always spoke of amnesty as
something that would be extended to illegal aliens who've been here a
long time and paid their back taxes. But the bill he supports gives
amnesty to people who crashed the border as recently as six months
ago, and it drops the part about back taxes.
So, small wonder that Americans greet Bush's views on the immigration
bill with either hostility or utter indifference. They sense that the
fix is in - that illegal-alien advocates and big business have
combined with lawmakers to sell them out.
And they don't want to fall for a repeat of the 1986 grand bargain,
which promised amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in return for
fines against employers who hire them. The amnesty came off, while the
employer sanctions were sabotaged. The original proposal called for a
computerized registry against which employers would have to verify the
right of all job applicants to work in the United States. It was
ditched and replaced with an "honor system" that let employers accept
documents that looked OK to them. Thus, a new era of counterfeiting
was born.
Here's a simple idea to build public support for an immigration
compromise: Have Congress pass the part of the bill that would force
employers to check all new hires' eligibility to work in the United
States with a database (and fine those who don't). Once that's being
done to the public's satisfaction, we can discuss what to do about the
illegal immigrants living here and whether to increase the number of
legal visas.
The latest round of threats has it that if Congress doesn't pass
comprehensive immigration reform right away, the issue will get lost
in the upcoming presidential campaigns. Wrong. On the contrary, the
American people will have the opportunity to press the candidates on
what they would do about a matter that affects their wages, health
care, taxes and the environment.
There are worse things than the status quo. Bush has shown time and
again that he knows how to create them. Now, if he would only just go
away.
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Froma Harrop is a member of the Providence (R.I.) Journal editorial
board and a Creators Syndicate columnist.
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