No Bush, no border reform

One major difference between the bills has to do with the extent to which new temporary-worker programs would allow for permanent residence and eventual citizenship for those workers. Another crucial difference has to do with transferring the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now here into a legal framework while acknowledging two conflicting realities: (a) Politically, no one in Washington wants to be seen as rewarding those who break the law, and (b) economically, we rely on these people. McCain and Kennedy would make those here illegally pay a fine and wait longer for permanent residence. That's barely punitive, in part to assuage the concerns of U.S. employers (remember, this is a crime with an accomplice) who don't want to lose workers.

Kyl and Cornyn offer a tougher approach that may seem more politically palatable, but is laughably impractical. Their proposal would force undocumented workers to go back to their countries of origin before they could be granted a visa. McCain mocked this as a "report to deport" program: "To say that they're going to come out of the shadows and say, 'Send me back to Guatemala; I've been living in Phoenix for 50 years,' borders on fantasy."

But the most important witness at the hearing turned out to be Hal Daub, a former congressman who now heads the American Health Care Assn. The industry he represents is clearly alarmed by the Kyl-Cornyn approach. Deporting illegal healthcare workers would be "disruptive to the delivery of quality care. It would cause a deterioration in the quality of that care," he said. By the end of the hearing, Cornyn was in full retreat, saying that maybe an illegal worker's "trip" home could be short enough to ensure no disruption in his employment. So the punishment turns into a vacation?

This all lends credence to the theory that the Kyl-Cornyn bill is a tactical gambit -- backed by the White House -- to produce a compromise bill that preserves the essence of McCain-Kennedy with a tougher veneer, so that it can be more easily sold to a skeptical House. Whatever the case, it's Bush himself who'll have to do the selling.