Jewish World Review April 18, 2006 / 20 Nissan, 5766

Paul Greenberg

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Mexican standoff: Washington in inaction

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | How describe the stalemate, gridlock or whatever it is in the U.S. Senate? I'd say it's a Mexican standoff, almost literally. Because the subject is illegal immigration, which continues pretty much unimpeded while Congress bickers. Whatever you want to call that impasse in Washington, it's no advertisement for the democratic process.


If Winston Churchill was right and democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others, just imagine how sorry all the others must be. Because to watch Congress in action on this issue, or rather inaction, is to watch democracy choke on its own clogged process. The spectacle would be enough to turn a red-blooded American into a monarchist — if not for that late unpleasantness circa 1776.


When it was announced that Congress was taking some time off for its spring recess, an observer would have to ask: Recess from what?


After a lot of fuss-'n'-feathers, and the announcement that a Great Compromise had finally been reached in the Senate with smiles and handshakes and press conferences all around . . . the whole, carefully crafted arrangement fell apart. And so the challenge of illegal immigration, one of the more pressing pieces of business facing the nation for years now, remains stalled.


For a brief moment, it looked as if Congress might actually do something constructive. The Senate seemed poised to do the right thing: strengthen the country's porous southern border, expand its guest-worker program and pave the way for millions of illegal immigrants who have led a productive life in this country to get in line for citizenship.


Granted, the Senate bill is far from a perfect solution to a problem that has been allowed to grow into a mean and divisive issue. For just one example, illegal immigrants were going to be divided according to how long they'd been in this country. Which ones, do you suppose, would step forward and say they hadn't been here long enough to qualify for legal status and volunteer to be deported? (They may be illegal, but they ain't dumb.)


And how were our uninvited guests going to prove just when they'd arrived — by presenting the visas they'd never troubled to get? If we were really serious about keeping track of folks in this country in these post-9/11 times, we'd be issuing national identification cards to the whole population, but of course any solution so comprehensive, or so rational, would violate every taboo of our still frontier culture.


But there was also much to recommend in this uneven bill: The illegals wouldn't be getting a free ride. They'd have to have a clean record, show they were employed, pay a fine and get in back of the line for a green card — and then only begin the long process of becoming naturalized citizens.


But this wasn't enough for those who want to brand all 11 or 12 million people in this country illegally felons, round 'em up and ship 'em out — even though everybody knows that's not going to happen. Well, everybody who's realistic, anyway.


Even if it could be done, the greatest victim of such a draconian policy would be the American economy. Consider all the industries that depend on immigrant labor: agriculture, food processing, furniture manufacturing, construction, restaurants, textiles, hotels, health care . . . not to mention domestic help.


The business group pressing to regularize the status of the country's illegal immigrants — the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition — represents everybody from the Society of American Florists to the Outdoor Amusement Business Association. Just the one-day demonstrations that brought millions out into the streets across the country slowed business in sector after sector of the American economy. Do we really want to impose that slowdown permanently?


The brief appearance of reason and comity in the U.S. Senate turned out to be a mirage. What killed the compromise? Party politics. With congressional elections approaching, partisans in both parties saw a chance to rally their base, and they seized it. Merely solving a great, festering national problem didn't have the same sense of urgency about it.


For the moment, Republicans can wave around the House bill that labels illegal aliens felons; it's proof they're not soft on Those People. As an electoral strategy, it might even work in selected parts of the country where nativist emotion is strong, like here in Arkansas.


The only thing the GOP stands to lose by such a tactic is the future. Because all those protesters in the streets, and the silent millions behind them, aren't likely to forget which party wanted to treat them, or at least their mamas and papas, like felons. And people remember that kind of hurt, especially in the voting booth.


The Republicans are handing their opponents the issue of a lifetime, maybe several lifetimes. For this is how stereotypes are created, and the Democrats could scarcely have hoped for a more useful image of Republicans: mean, family-destroying, economy-disrupting haters. It's the kind of stereotype of the opposition on which decades of electoral victories can be built.


Democrats have their own reasons for sabotaging any sensible compromise where illegal immigration is concerned: They can hope to keep the issue alive at least till November and Election Day. They'd be happy to help the GOP brand itself the anti-Hispanic party. Indeed, it was the Democrats in the House who prevented the Republicans, after they'd had second and better thoughts, from taking that part about "felons" out of their immigration bill.


But when the Democratic leadership stalled the Senate bill that would have legalized the presence of millions of hard-working people in this country, people whose only crime was to desperately want to become Americans, the Dems may have underestimated the savvy of Hispanic voters. Those voters can recognize the cynical political game being played here, and soon enough will figure out who blocked passage of this bill in the Senate.


In short, both parties have covered themselves with something other than glory in this stalemate. The country can only hope that being away from the miasmic air of Washington for a couple of weeks will restore Congress' perspective, and maybe even its conscience. Because it's a sin to let these ill feelings fester. Especially when the presence of these millions of Americans-in-waiting among us represents less a problem to be solved than an opportunity to be seized.


Like every other great wave of immigration that has added to this country's many-splendored tapestry and ever-growing strength, this one will, too, in time. But to realize as much, and to have the courage to act on that realization, requires the rarest of qualities in Washington: reason. Some faith, hope and charity wouldn't hurt, either.

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JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.

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