May Is Immigration Reform Month on the Hill
Tamar Jacoby, a Republican immigration expert with the Manhattan Institute who has long agreed with the administration's immigration policies, says one crucial question will be if some portion of the temporary workers will be able to eventually become citizens, and if there will be enough visas for a decent portion to do so in a timely manner.
"Some people will want to come and do work for a short time and go home, but we as Americans, should want some immigrants to stay," Jacoby says. "I don't think we can abandon the whole melting-pot model for a strictly temporary model that could create a whole permanent underclass of workers."
She also, like many, worries that the clock is ticking. Many experts say if an immigration reform bill doesn't pass in 2007, presidential election politics will make it virtually impossible to do anything the following year, in 2008.
"They've got two weeks of hard negotiations to go on this bill," says Jacoby. "And I think a lot of things are going to change in those two weeks." Immigration advocates and thousands on the streets for May Day certainly hope so.
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