The Senate has been busy this week working on an immigration bill. A compromise bill seems to be emerging. On Tuesday the Senate voted 55 to 40 to reject an amendment to delay any temporary guest-worker and legalization provisions until the border is certified as secure.
Eighteen Republicans cast critical votes against the amendment. In effect, this rejected the approach of the House, which passed a border-security-only bill last December. The Senate also rejected by a 69-to-28 vote an amendment that would have removed the guest-worker provisions. But in a victory for the other side, the Senate voted 79 to 18 for an amendment by Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Jeff Bingaman that reduced the number of low-skill guest-worker visas from 325,000 a year to 200,000 and removed a provision that increased that number 20 percent each year that the ceiling was reached. Many conservatives have argued that our current immigration regime lets in too many low-skilled immigrants and too few with high skills. This amendment seems to address that complaint.
Yesterday there were more key votes. Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions sponsored an amendment requiring a 300-mile border fence and 500 miles of vehicle barriers, plus fortification of the current 70 miles of fence near San Diego and in Arizona. This passed by the whopping margin of 83 to 16. That margin is a sign that politicians of both parties feel a political imperative to vote for border security. By a much narrower margin, 50 to 48, the Senate approved an amendment by Republicans Jon Kyl and John Cornyn requiring that legalization petitions be sought by employers, not illegal immigrants themselves.
In my U.S. News column in the issue on the stands May 8, I wrote:
Conviction politics. A columnist is tempted to say that the politicians should toss aside political concerns and do what they believe is in the public interest. Easy enough to say. But something just like that may be happening. Politicians act out of some combination of calculation and conviction; the proportions vary. On immigration there are some politicians, of both parties and on both sides, who are visibly acting out of conviction. And not just the noisy immigration restrictionists, like Rep. Tom Tancredo, who wants a border fence. These conviction politicians include Edward Kennedy and John McCain, who favor relatively generous guest-worker and legalization provisions, and Sens. Jon Kyl and John Cornyn, who favor a less generous version. Add to this list GeorgeW. Bush, who seems poised to take an unusually active role on the issue.
The route to agreement is to give all of these conviction politicians much of what they want. A fence, high-tech border-security and identification devices, some compromise on guest workers and legalization–all could be part of an omnibus measure. As for the calculation politicians, as they try to assess the political landscape and reconcile the seemingly contradictory findings of various polls, they appear to be coming to the conclusion that inaction–or blocking action now that the issue is so visible–poses a higher political risk than taking action. Voters understandably believe we should have better border security and should do something about the 12 million illegal immigrants in our midst. Neither Congress nor President Bush has acted in five years. Maybe, just maybe, they're on the brink of doing so now.
This is what seems to be happening now. The political price of inaction is seen as higher than the political price of not entirely satisfactory action—an argument made by immigration skeptic Tony Blankley in the Washington Times yesterday.
Especially regarding the guest-worker provision, if we pass no legislation this year, we will continue to have a de facto guest-worker program with millions of new arrivals every year and no secure border. Moreover, it is inconceivable that the November election will elect a Congress more amenable to our cause. The next Congress will have, if anything, more Democrats. Disgruntled conservatives will have no way of strengthening the anti-illegal-immigrant vote: Their choice will be a soft Republican, a bad Democrat, or abstention (which in effect is the same as a bad Democrat). It would seem to me that we lose nothing by trading an otherwise inevitable de facto guest-worker condition for a genuinely secure border and employer-sanction regimen.
On the other hand, the path to citizenship is not inevitable and should be fiercely resisted. Granting sacred citizenship to scofflaws is reprehensible, and if we pass nothing, at least we won't pass such a citizenship provision.
It seems to me that the momentum is building for legislation to pass—a momentum that seems likely to prove unstoppable. The Senate bill now has provisions that immigration skeptics value—the Sessions fence, the reduction in low-skill visas, the requirement that employers submit legalization petitions. But these aren't likely to be enough to lose the votes of those who want a more generous approach. Many House Republicans are leery of the Senate approach. But they won't want to be seen as killing a bill with tough border security provisions. Therefore there's likely to be serious negotiation in conference committee. Compromising between the 300-mile Sessions fence and the House's 700-mile fence shouldn't be difficult. Getting the House to negotiate some compromise with the Senate's guest-worker and legalization provisions has just gotten easier with the Senate votes this week. Speaker Dennis Hastert has often said that he won't bring to the floor legislation that doesn't have the support of a majority of Republican members. But the pressure for some legislation could produce a conference committee report which, with the Bush administration lobbying hard, could get 117 Republican votes—and which with Democratic support would easily clear the House. Six weeks ago I was pessimistic about the chances of an immigration bill passing. Now they look very much better.
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