House GOP pushes 'just for show' bills on immigration

[n2doc]

House GOP pushes 'just for show' bills on immigration
Ruben Navarrette Jr., San Diego Union-Tribune
Wednesday, September 20, 2006


(09-20) 04:00 PDT San Diego -- I DON'T FULLY understand how Congress works. But after the latest round of gimmicks by House Republicans over immigration reform, I have a pretty good idea of why it doesn't. My first hint that Congress was dysfunctional came a few months ago during an interview with House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a major player in the immigration debate and the author of an enforcement-only bill passed by the House last year. Sensenbrenner said that he opposed amnesty and believed that Congress should first strive for border security. He also said that the illegal immigrants who were already here had to return home, yet once there, he might support expediting their re-entry into the United States through legal channels.

Fine. There's nothing wrong with any of that. What's wrong is that Sensenbrenner and other House Republican hard-liners don't know how to take "yes" for an answer, and that raises questions about their motives. Near the end of the interview, Sensenbrenner said that he opposed the compromise plan proposed by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. Later, during an appearance on CNN, Sensenbrenner dismissed the Hutchison-Pence plan as "amnesty lite." So what's the problem? I thought then, and still think now, that this was mostly a political turf war, and that Sensenbrenner got his ego bruised when Pence, a rising star in the GOP, started lining up support for his plan after House Republicans had already passed the Sensenbrenner bill. That legislation was supposed to be the definitive word from the House on immigration, and here was Pence daring to offer an alternative.

Now, less than two months before the Nov. 7 midterm elections, House Republicans -- desperate to avoid the wrath of conservative voters, who might be angry at lawmakers who offer nothing on immigration reform but talk -- seem to have brushed aside the Sensenbrenner bill, the Hutchison-Pence plan and the possibility of working out differences with the Senate bill, which offers illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. Instead, Republicans have cobbled together a slate of 10 just-for-show enforcement measures intended to make voters think the illegal immigration problem can be fixed with a little spit and glue. I thought that was curious because Hutchison-Pence rejects amnesty, puts border security first and requires illegal immigrants to go home before re-entering the country legally as guest workers. In other words, everything that Sensenbrenner says he wants done.


snip:
None of these efforts will do any good, of course, without first addressing the magnet that draws illegal immigrants here in the first place -- jobs, jobs and more jobs provided by U.S. employers. Interestingly enough, nowhere in the GOP's 10-point enforcement plan do you find any mention of stiffening employer sanctions even though that provision was in the Sensenbrenner bill. That's just perfect. It's a clear illustration of why Republicans -- as the political party that is most beholden to business, and thus the most reluctant to punish employers -- are always at a disadvantage when tackling illegal immigration. Even after five years of debating this issue, that hasn't changed.

rest of article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/09/20/EDG6PKDTN21.DTL

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