Immigrant bashers have had a field day since Sept. 11. Public opinion is aroused, law enforcement is on alert, legislation is being rewritten--all sensible reactions to the war against terrorism.
What doesn't make sense is to use the terrorist attacks as an excuse to close our borders to future immigrants or to close our minds as to how to deal with the estimated 8 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
Immigrant-bashing has been a favored tactic for many in the Republican Party--remember California's Proposition 187?--but President Bush and GOP leaders in Congress have wisely begun to reverse that nativist trend.
The president in particular has been aggressive with a constructive agenda on immigration topics before and since Sept. 11: backing the extension of 245(i) visas (allowing illegal immigrants to remain with their families in the U.S. while applying for a green card; the bill cleared the House on March 12), holding talks with President Vicente Fox of Mexico on guest worker programs and resisting calls for sealed borders and mass deportation.
On Friday, Bush will meet with Fox and is expected again to discuss a United States-Mexico accord to reform an immigration system that everyone agrees is broken. Such a plan would strengthen our borders by creating a regulated migration path and allow some law-abiding, hard-working illegal immigrants to earn their way to legal status.
If there are potential evildoers among them, this handful must be dealt with. But if we further isolate immigrants, as GOP firebrand Pat Buchanan and others suggest, we make this task harder.
A related issue is the children of illegal immigrants who are here through the actions of their parents but are being punished by state and federal laws for their parents' choices.
Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) has introduced legislation called the Student Adjustment Act that is a good example of the type of initiatives that Republicans need to take. This measure also is consistent with a recent decision by the regents of the University of California to allow children of illegal immigrants living in the state to pay the same tuition as other state residents.
Cannon's legislation would restore a state's right to determine who is a resident for purposes of higher education and would allow for the naturalization of currently enrolled high school students of good moral character.
