By Antonio D. French
Filed Thursday, December 15 at 7:56 AM
In case you missed it, below is an op-ed by Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Mel Martinez (R-FL) on comprehensive immigration reform. The op-ed ran in today’s (Dec-15) Wall Street Journal, Page A18.
Like millions of Americans, the immigrant story is our story. We understand the allure of freedom and opportunity in the U.S. From this very personal vantage point, and because millions of immigrants live and work in Illinois and Florida, we take a special interest in the current debate on the reform of our immigration policies.
When Congress last addressed this issue comprehensively in 1986, there were approximately four million illegal immigrants living here. Today, it is estimated there are more than 11 million. We are a generous and welcoming people, but those who enter our country illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law. And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the U.S. undetected, undocumented and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security and better enforcement of the immigration laws.
To begin with, the agencies charged with border security require new technology, new facilities and more people to stop, process and deport illegal immigrants. But while security might start at our borders, it doesn't end there. Millions of illegal immigrants live and work here without our knowing their identity or background. That's why we need a guest-worker program to replace the flood of illegals with a regulated stream of legals who enter the U.S. after checks and with access to labor rights. This would enhance our security, raise wages and improve working conditions for all Americans.
American employers also need to take responsibility. Too often illegal immigrants are lured here with the promise of a job, only to receive unconscionably low wages. In the interest of cheap labor, unscrupulous employers look the other way when employees provide fraudulent U.S. citizenship documents. These acts hurt both American workers and immigrants whose sole aim is to work hard and get ahead. That's why we need a simple, foolproof and mandatory mechanism for all employers to check the legal status of new hires.
If we hope to bring the 11 million undocumented immigrants out into the open, we must give them a reason. This means granting them an interim legal status to work with the opportunity to eventually earn citizenship. We can do this, without amnesty, by imposing a hefty fine for having illegally entered our country, and by forcing the undocumented to go to the back of the line in their pursuit of citizenship. The interim status should only apply to those already here, so as not to open the door for others.
We simply cannot claim to have dealt with the problems of illegal immigration if we ignore the illegal resident population or pretend that they will leave voluntarily. Some of the proposed ideas in Congress provide a temporary legal status and call for deportation, but fail to answer how the government would deport 11 million people. If temporary legal status is granted but the policy says these immigrants are never good enough to become Americans, then the policy makes little sense.
We believe successful, comprehensive immigration reform can be achieved by combining the strongest elements of Chuck Hagel's border-security proposals with the realistic workplace and earned-citizenship program proposed by John McCain and Ted Kennedy. We will work on both sides of the aisle to ensure that both are incorporated into the reform process, and we welcome new voices and new ideas in the debate.
As FDR reminded the nation at the 50th anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, those who landed at Ellis Island "were the men and women who had the supreme courage to strike out for themselves, to abandon language and relatives, to start at the bottom without influence, without money, and without knowledge of life in a very young civilization." Today's immigrants seek to follow in that tradition. We do ourselves and them a disservice if we do not recognize the contributions of these individuals. And we fail to protect our children if we do not regain control over our immigration system immediately.
Mr. Obama is a Democratic senator from Illinois whose father was from Kenya. Mr. Martinez is a Republican senator from Florida and an immigrant from Cuba.
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