Immigration Reform

Several Baltimore-area faith leaders speaking at St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church on Tuesday called for immigration reform, a month after Congress introduced legislation addressing the topic. The Rev. Joe Muth of St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church on Loch Raven Boulevard said he opened an immigration center at his church 10 years ago. He said the center guides people through the legalization procedure and would like to see the federal government adopt a model that would expedite the naturalization process.

If the Obama administration proceeds to electoral doom, blame rests on its surrender to its financiers and campaign organizers: Wall Street and public employee and construction unions. A Democratic administration in control of Congress which for two years left hedge fund managers' "carried interest" untouched while not providing a Civilian Conservation Corps or payroll tax moratorium for young workers to relieve youth unemployment has something wrong with it. Meanwhile, the bizarre Republican schemes for tax relief have in common a determination not to burden "the donor community.

The recent article about the expansion into Baltimore of the Department of Homeland Security's program to crackdown on illegal immigrants ("Immigrants, city fear divide over status checks," Feb. 26) makes clear the need for real immigration reform. Programs such as Secure Communities, regardless of aim, are succeeding in spreading fear and division and in threatening the stability of the family. Moreover, the program is altering the relationship between federal immigration enforcement and local law enforcement.

The recent article about the expansion into Baltimore of the Department of Homeland Security's program to crackdown on illegal immigrants ("Immigrants, city fear divide over status checks," Feb. 26) makes clear the need for real immigration reform. Programs such as Secure Communities, regardless of aim, are succeeding in spreading fear and division and in threatening the stability of the family. Moreover, the program is altering the relationship between federal immigration enforcement and local law enforcement.

Well, who says you can't teach an old dog new (dirty) tricks. It seems The Sun has taken a tactic straight from the playbook of the Republican Party: use the tainted messenger to taint the message. By pointing out that former Congressman Tom Tancredo has a record of insensitive and harsh behavior ("Tea and insensitivity," Feb. 10) does not mean that one should not consider illegal immigration to be a problem or that those who want enforcement of laws are racist. In fact, many of us who want illegal immigration laws to be strictly enforced have our nation's interest and cohesiveness in mind.

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.

WASHINGTON - News flash: Barack Obama and John McCain share an identical position on a matter of intense interest to voters -immigration - that is a symbol of Washington's failure to solve the nation's problems. Does that mean something will finally get done about immigration when the new president takes over? Surprisingly, perhaps, the answer appears to be "No." And that might raise questions about exactly how much change the next president will deliver. At the moment, Obama and McCain are intensifying their efforts to gain support from Latinos, whose votes have the power to decide the presidential election.

When Robert S. Forman needed someone to develop and manage a complex automated distribution system for IMI Systems Inc., a computer systems design company in New York, he scouted the globe for someone with the right expertise to launch the ambitious project.It turned out a British national with a European supermarket chain was the person Mr. Forman needed. The system was designed for an IMI client, and at the same time, Mr. Forman's company, now armed with innovative technology, scored an important leg up in the fiercely competitive information technology field.

WASHINGTON -- It sounds simple enough: Every time a business makes a hire, the employer first dials a toll-free telephone number to verify the immigration status of the new worker.Just like the process that occurs at the cash register when a customer hands over a credit card, a central computer would instantly relay back a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.Computer verification of immigration status is being described by proponents as a virtually foolproof method of determining who can and cannot legally work in the United States, one offering far more reliability than the easily forged work-authorization documents now reviewed by employers.

Blaine Young, president of Frederick County's board of commissioners, has plans to make Frederick "the most unfriendly county in the state of Maryland to illegal aliens. " And while he said some localities might cringe at such a title, "we wear that with a badge of honor. " County officials - motivated by a high-profile murder charge against an alleged illegal immigrant - are attempting to craft sweeping legislation to prohibit undocumented workers from getting jobs and renting homes.

The nation recently received two contradictory signals about the importance of immigration reform. President Barack Obama stood near the Mexican border in El Paso last month and called (again) for immigration reform. The next week, Gallup released a poll showing that a scant 4 percent of Americans consider immigration to be the nation's most important problem. That's down from 11 percent four years ago. What's happened to our national immigration angst? Clearly, the economic slump that began in late 2007 has given us other things to worry about.

The Dream Act debate that has recently arrived in Maryland has provoked such discriminatory xenophobia that you would think the commentary was from indigenous Americans, not from citizens of the nation known as the "melting pot of the world" whose very ancestors were immigrants themselves. "Well, they were legal immigrants," you say. That's because the U.S. had little to no immigration restrictions in those times and our ancestors were lucky enough to get in by the proverbial skin of their teeth.

The state Senate is poised this week to take up a controversial plan to offer discounted tuition at Maryland's public colleges and universities to students who are in the country illegally. The legislation, which cleared the Senate education committee last week, would allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at any of Maryland's public community colleges. After completing two years of study, they could transfer to a four-year institution and continue to pay the in-state rate.

If we really wanted immigration reform, we'd have had it years ago. In 2006, President George W. Bush supported a proposal that would've required undocumented immigrants to take English classes and pay fines and back taxes in exchange for guest worker status and, eventually, citizenship. "I know this is an emotional debate," said Mr. Bush. "But one thing we cannot lose sight of is that we're talking about human beings, decent human beings that need to be treated with respect." But Mr. Bush was shouted down by angry people carrying "Go back to Mexico!"

Immigration reform is the right issue — at the wrong time. It's the right issue because, now that substantial health care reform has been achieved, perhaps this nation's greatest remaining travesty is that more than 10 million people live among us in a shadow world of fear and hardship. The vast majority of illegal immigrants stay out of trouble and work hard to support their families, yet most endure poverty, hostility and constant anxiety about being torn from their loved ones and deported.

Who would have thought that Team Obama would make "driving while immigrant" an enforceable offense? While President Barack Obama continues to give lip service (37 words in the recent State of the Union address) to immigration reform, his administration's embrace of zero-tolerance enforcement strategies reveals a remarkable lack of concern about the repressive criminalization of immigrants. This embrace belies the spirit of reform that the White House trumpeted last week as the president met with U.S. Sens.