WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY is America and what kind of country will we become? Nothing that comes before Congress and the presidency is more pertinent to these questions than the subject of immigration. Throughout U.S. history, the nation has groped to find the line between control of its borders and demographics and its tradition as a haven for immigrants.
After much soul-searching, Congress appears to be on the path to a consensus in which there will be a crackdown on aliens illegally entering this country but relatively little will be done to discourage legal immigration. This is a prudent approach so long as it is recognized that population growth, 40 percent of which reflects immigration, will be a recurring issue.
The Senate bill is aimed squarely at borders and the workplace. To prevent illegals from crossing over the Rio Grande, the Border Patrol will be almost doubled to 10,000 in the next five years. To stop employers from hiring illegals, often at low wages, the government will put in a pilot verification program and stiffen penalties. Missing from the Senate measure but present in the House bill is a provision to deny public schooling to children of illegals.
President Clinton has threatened a veto if such a provision is included in the final measure. He also has stated strong objections to proposed limits on welfare assistance for legal immigrants. We hope these matters can be worked out so that some agreed immigration reform can be adopted.
There seems to be little objection on Capitol Hill to a beefing up in the Border Patrol, but consensus breaks down quickly on the proposal to develop a forgery-proof employment documents. Liberals raise civil rights questions; conservatives fear this is big-government intrusion on employers and the first step toward a "Big Brother" national identity card.
Ideological lines also scramble on the root subject of how many immigrants should be allowed in the country. The Senate rebuffed efforts to limit the number of legal entrants as conservatives argued the merits of a young, highly skilled work force and liberals evoked the tradition of the open door. So it perhaps was just as well that the Senate decided to concentrate on the problem of illegals.
The United States has come a long way from the Euro-centric national origins system of the 1920s to a point where most new citizens come from Latin America and Asia. This is diversity enshrined. We now need to find a balance between the costs of immigration and the undoubted contributions that new citizens make.
Pub Date: 5/06/96
