Immigration Reform

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.

The political wisdom of today declares that the middle class must be rescued, but it's the lower class that is the most endangered segment of America. The working poor are squeezed between pressure from illegal labor and a stagnant economy. The health of this segment of our citizenry is essential to the restoration and maintenance of our national health. Indeed, history demonstrates that a society dependent upon surrogate labor is a society in decay. Given all the attention paid these days to Civil War anniversaries, the Antebellum South provides an example worth revisiting.

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.

When South Carolina Republican Congressman Joe Wilson barked out the words "You lie!" to President Barack Obama during the president's address to both houses of Congress, he previewed the tone of the coming immigration debate that Sen. Harry Reid and the White House promise will follow health care reform. It is going to get ugly. When Senate Democrats quickly responded to Mr. Wilson's impertinent comments by "drilling deeper" into their proposals to make sure that undocumented immigrants are even more explicitly excluded from proposed health care exchanges, the die was cast, it seems, for the continued demonization of undocumented immigrants.

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.

SO GREAT is the Republican impulse to deny President Clinton bill-signing ceremonies before the November election that his opponent, Bob Dole, has slipped into a negative posture that strikes us as dumb politics. Acting somewhat as Senate majority leader in absentia, Citizen Dole has used his influence with some former colleagues to ditch two key pieces of legislation -- a wide-ranging reform of immigration laws and ratification of a Chemical Weapons Convention crafted during the Bush administration.

MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Vicente Fox said yesterday that talks on immigration reform with American officials have ended for now and that there won't be any new announcements on the subject when he meets with President Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin next week. "President Bush has in his hands all the information, all the instruments to convert immigration initiatives into legislation," said Fox. "But it's up to him and the U.S. Congress to lead us into orderly, legal migration which is beneficial to all."

GLYNCO, Ga. -- President Bush cranked up his campaign for immigration reform yesterday, accusing detractors of unfairly picking apart a compromise bill and of denouncing the legislation without reading it. The president used his most forceful language yet in support of the Senate bill, which would establish a new point system for awarding green cards and offer legal status to many illegal workers already in the country. "The first step to comprehensive reform must be to enforce immigration laws at the borders and at work sites across America.

WASHINGTON -- A fierce fight is brewing among Republicans over President Bush's plans for sweeping immigration reform during his second term, pitting one of the president's highest priorities against a determined conservative opposition on Capitol Hill. As Bush begins his push to enact the plan, a top priority and one he sees as an element of his legacy, a powerful group of conservative Republicans in the House is flexing its muscles to make it clear that it intends to block the measure, or at least add major restrictions to it. Nowhere are the battle lines clearer than in the current negotiations over a measure to reorganize the nation's intelligence community in response to the Sept.