HOW SHE SEES IT Bush's immigration policy makes sense

By MARY SANCHEZ
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
"Catch and release" works fine for fishing. Snag a fish on a hook, then release it to be recaptured another day; often when the finned one is bigger. The practice is the sportsman's way of keeping the match going.
It does not work with illegal immigration.
This much President George Bush firmly recognized while touring the U.S./Mexico border recently. Bush, eager to resuscitate his strategy to overhaul immigration, pointed out the problem:
"This policy of catch and release has been the government's policy for decades. It's an unwise policy and we are going to end it."
The system often involves people known as OTM's, for Other Than Mexicans. Because more than 90 percent of the people caught illegally entering through the country's borders are Mexican, everyone else gets categorized into this other lump sum.
Hondurans with more than 36,000 caught in the first six months of fiscal 2005, topped the list. Brazilians at 27,300 for the same time period were next, and everyone else followed; mostly from Central American countries but also Cuba, China, Canada, Peru, India, Israel, Pakistan and a host of other nations.
Because the proximity to their home countries is so great a distance and the United States does not have the space to put all of them in cells; the people are given a future court date to appear for an immigration hearing. And they are released, unless of course they are already a known violent criminal.
Of course the majority do not show up upon the scheduled date.
So what Bush proposes make sense, if accepted along with his other views. Bush is calling for more detention facilities to supplement the 20,000 already being used. Mixed in with people who likely should be detained are immigrants seeking asylum from human rights violations and those who come into the law's hands through petty crime.
Here is where the slippery slope begins.
Cottage industry
More imprisonment without curbing the flow of illegal people is not a problem solved. It is the creation of a cottage industry supported by illegal immigration. The approach could be compared to the burgeoning U.S. prison system. Entire towns are supported by prisons as a local job base rather than tackling the larger problem of deterring people from becoming criminals.
Already county and local jails in nearly every state are used to house immigrants awaiting their day before an immigration judge. The cost is between $60 and $200 a day, depending on the location and the immigrant.
Bush is correct to repeatedly use the term "comprehensive immigration reform," stressing that more bed space for people detained is only a sliver of a full plan. Others are not so savvy. They like to preen and preach enforcement only. As in higher fences, more border agents, more high technology.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is also stressing a multifaceted approach. "It's simply a matter of logic," Chertoff said. "If you are trying to dam a river, what you don't do is simply build a high dam, because the water keeps rising and the pressure keeps building. You try to build a channel for the water that's productive and that's regulated, so you can take some of the pressure off the dam."
The best way to take that pressure off: acknowledge that the labor market wants and needs many of the immigrants and offer a legal route of entry. This is Bush's guest worker plan.
The U.S. dependence on influxes of willing workers coupled with no way for those workers to arrive legally has created the problem of illegal immigration. Lax immigration policies simply exacerbate that core problem.
Bush is right to call for changes. But doing one thing and not many others will only continue the cycle; which is a whole lot like the futility of catch and release.
X Mary Sanchez is an opinion-page columnist for The Kansas City Star. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.