A bipartisan plan for immigration reform

What happened

A bipartisan group of senators unveiled a proposal for comprehensive immigration reform this week, setting out a road map for 11 million illegal immigrants to begin a long journey to full citizenship. The plan by the eight senators, who included Republicans John McCain and Marco Rubio and Democrats Chuck Schumer and Robert Menendez, would give undocumented immigrants provisional legal status if they registered with the government, paid a fine, settled their back taxes, and proved they could speak English. They could then join the line for permanent residence, or a “green card,” and thereafter apply for full citizenship. In a provision insisted on by Republicans, permanent-resident status would be available only after the government deployed more border agents and unmanned drones and a special commission deemed the southern U.S. border “fully secured.”

President Obama suspended plans to unveil his own immigration proposal, and hailed the bipartisan Senate initiative. But he emphasized that lawmakers must act quickly to fix a “badly broken” system, or he would send his own legislation to Congress. “A call for action can now be heard coming from all across America,” said Obama. “Now’s the time.” Strong Republican opposition to giving illegal immigrants any legal standing has softened since the presidential election, which Republican Mitt Romney lost partly because he got only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote. “The Republican Party is losing the support of our Hispanic citizens,” said McCain. “We have to understand that.”

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What the editorials said

Thanks to an “emerging bipartisan consensus,” immigration reform may finally be possible, said The Washington Post. But requiring illegal immigrants to go to the back of a waiting line for visas means that most wouldn’t get one for a decade or longer, with citizenship even more distant. “As paths to citizenship go, that’s too long,” and a process that requires people to register with the government but wait years for legal status would discourage people from participating. “Demanding an airtight border” is also unrealistic and unnecessary, said the Los Angeles Times. Illegal crossings are already down 80 percent since 2000.

Border crossing has dropped only because of the lousy state of the U.S. economy, said The Wall Street Journal, and it’ll go up once our job creation does. Republicans have to insist on greater border enforcement in the bill to get the “conservative rank and file” on board. And there’s nothing wrong with requiring illegal immigrants to wait years for their papers, said USA Today. Letting them quickly qualify for citizenship would be a “slap in the face to those who played by the rules.”

What the columnists said

Don’t let the support of a few Republican senators fool you, said Alex Pareene in Salon.com. In rural white America, “right-wing nativism” remains a powerful force, and the conservative media is already shouting “amnesty.” There’s no reason to think House Republicans from severely conservative districts will risk infuriating their constituents by voting for any reform package. Nor should they, said Michael Graham in the Boston Herald. Giving amnesty to people who came here illegally to steal American jobs will only produce “more illegal immigration tomorrow.”

It’s true that reform will be hard to sell to the Right, said Robert Costa in NationalReview.com. But Marco Rubio is a “pro at soothing conservatives’ anxiety.” The Cuban-American senator even convinced Rush Limbaugh to tentatively support the Senate proposal this week. His talent for speaking conservatives’ language—and his status as a future presidential contender—“may be the factor ensuring passage of the bill.” Conservatives must ask themselves if they want to “cling to phony bumper sticker slogans like ‘no amnesty,’” said Jennifer Rubin in WashingtonPost.com, or face the reality that responsible immigration reform is critical to attracting Latino voters to the party—and winning elections.

If Obama wants reform, he should stop talking about it, said Ezra Klein, also in WashingtonPost.com. Most Washington Republicans understand the “strategic and substantive reasons for making a deal,” but conservative voters hate “anything overly associated with the Obama administration.” The president has made his speech; now it’s up to Congress. By staying out of the deal-making, Obama will make it “easier for Republicans to stay in.”