U.S. Demands Comprehensive Immigration Reform

The immigration debate is the moment once more dominating the news as members of Congress concentrate on the lengthy-neglected difficulty of fixing our country's monstrance failed immigration laws.

American lawmakers are now at a critical point. Enforcement-only legislation will not function and hasn't worked. Earlier efforts to solve this dilemma by focusing exclusively on border security have failed miserably.

In fact, for the duration of the past decade, the U.S. tripled the quantity of agents retrofitting on the border, quintupled the budget, toughened our enforcement strategies and heavily fortified urban entry points.

But for the duration of the very same time period, America saw record levels of illegal immigration, porous borders, a cottage business designed for smugglers and document forgers and tragic deaths in our deserts.

We need to discover from our blunders, not repeat them. What we need is comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform that deals smartly with the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living and working in the U.S.

Most are relatives of U.S. citizens and lawful residents or workers holding jobs that Americans do not want. Individuals already right here who are not a threat to our security, but who work difficult, pay taxes and are studying English, should be allowed to earn permanent residence.

The Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act, introduced by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and others, includes the required components of reform and supplies the basis for fixing our method. It combines toughness with fairness, developing a new temporary visa plan that supplies a legal flow of workers.

This "break-the-mold" worker system would considerably diminish illegal immigration by developing a reliquary legal avenue for folks to enter the U.S., something that barely exists these days. Present immigration laws provide just 5,000 annual permanent visas and 66,000 temporary visas for important lesser-skilled workers, in no way meeting the annual demand for 500,000 such workers.

In addition, reducing the decade-extended backlog in family-based immigration would reunite households more quickly and make it unlikely that individuals would cross the border illegally in order to be with their loved ones.

Congress and the administration must act wisely as they weigh their choices. We've had enough "speedy fixes" that have produced an already unworkable system worse. We cannot manage our borders - or enhance our national security - until we enact comprehensive immigration reform.

Deborah Notkin is president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. - NU