IT'S FAR TOO early to tell what will become of President Bush's plan to reform the nation's immigration policies.
While the guest worker program he proposed last week would represent the most sweeping changes since the amnesty granted by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, there is little hope Congress will adopt it any time soon. And should immigration reform become law, it likely would include so many compromises by both sides that the result would do little to address the problems.
Here's why: While nearly everyone agrees there are major problems with our immigration policies, there is broad disagreement over the nature of them. Some fret about the social atomization that comes from absorbing so many immigrants into our civic culture. Others feel immigration is the essence of that culture.
For many conservatives, the primary concern is the lax enforcement of current immigration laws. Mr. Bush's plan, they argue, would reward lawbreakers by letting them stay here without consequences, in essence giving them amnesty. But these "law and order" conservatives are undercut by the "free market" conservatives in their own party who are willing to ignore the laws broken by those who come here illegally, and by those who employ them, in order to gain the benefits of plentiful, cheap labor.
For their part, liberal immigration advocates and many Hispanic leaders argue (rightly, I believe) that the biggest problem with the current system is the lack of labor and legal protections for the estimated 8 million to 14 million undocumented people in the United States.
Further, the system gives these people no means to "regularize" their status and emerge from the underground economy. Legislation introduced last summer by Sen. John McCain and Reps. Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake, all Arizona Republicans, would address this need. But the president's plan, the liberals believe, lacks this crucial element and instead would turn undocumented workers into an indentured underclass beholden to their employers.
For all of these reasons, Mr. Bush's plan has caused a stir. Talk-show hosts and mainstream news outlets have again become interested in immigration. And in a positive side effect, relations with Mexico, which have suffered since 9/11, have warmed somewhat since Mr. Bush's announcement. Mexican President Vicente Fox is grateful for some movement on an issue of vital importance to his popularity, and he'll get to discuss the plan further when he visits Mr. Bush at his ranch in March.
