BRITAIN

BRITAIN
Financial Times, London, May 17: After his 2004 re-election, George W. Bush promised he would spend some of his political capital in pushing for balanced U.S. immigration reform. To his credit, Mr. Bush is still trying to honor that pledge. But it remains to be seen whether his broadcast calling on lawmakers to combine respect for the law with openness to immigration will shift a debate that has so far gone largely in favor of those emphasizing tougher border enforcement.
The House of Representatives has already passed a bill that would effectively criminalize the 12 million undocumented aliens estimated to be in America and drastically step up policing along its 2,000-mile border with Mexico. The Senate has yet to vote on a much better proposal sponsored by John McCain and Ted Kennedy that would give illegal immigrants the possibility of eventual citizenship if they declared themselves and paid a fine. It would also create an annual quota of jobs for unskilled foreign guest workers along the same lines as the existing H1B visas for skilled foreigners.
Immigration worry
The Senate bill still has a reasonable chance of passage. But those favoring measured reform for a country whose economy and civil culture has consistently been replenished by immigration worry that the draconian version would get the better of the reconciliation process between the houses. Such fears are well-founded. Republicans fear losing control of the lower house at midterm elections in November and point to opinion polls in which two-thirds of Americans support tougher border enforcement. Mr. Bush's pledge to reinforce the Border Patrol with up to 6,000 troops from the National Guard was designed to make it easier for Republicans to endorse the president's own guest worker proposal while still sounding tough. Mr. Bush's sop may or may not sway lawmakers. As the president probably knows, the measure would do little in practice to stem illegal immigration. Since the early 1990s, spending on border enforcement has risen by four times and the number of personnel has tripled, but the annual flow of illegal immigrants to the U.S. has more than doubled to 500,000.