Littwin: You could call it amnesty, or you could call it progress

By Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published May 19, 2007 at midnight

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Tom Tancredo is right. Sort of. The new immigration-reform legislation is a form of amnesty. Of course it is.

If the 380-page bill passes, people who have come here illegally - lured by employers in search of cheap labor - will get to stay in the United States. That's approximately 12 million people, or more.

Sure, they'd have to pay a substantial fine to get what they're calling a Z-visa. And yes, they'd have to wait eight years and apply from their country of origin if they want to begin what they're calling a path to citizenship.

But here's the truth: Once the program begins, the illegal immigrants who are living here would quickly become legal immigrants. The Z-visa is forever renewable, at four-year intervals, so long as the applicant hasn't broken the law and is otherwise an upstanding non-citizen. It means the holder can have a job legally. It means he or she can live here legally. It means the threat of la migra is no longer at the door.

Or as Ken Salazar, who helped write the legislation, said at news conference: It would move people from the "shadows of our society into the sunlight of America."

At which sunlit point, my favorite rhetorical question would become officially moot. It goes this way: "What part of illegal don't you understand?" You see, if the bill passes, it might take years before there would be a sufficient number of illegal immigrants for Tancredo and the Tancredistas to effectively demonize them.

Because if these immigrants are suddenly legal, what can be the objection to them?

That's a rhetorical question, of course. I read my e-mail. The objection is apparently that they - whoever they are - don't want to learn English or become real Americans. I always wondered how anyone determines that. Where's the evidence exactly? Did the people who say they didn't want to learn English tell you that in Spanish?

The question, for me, is why these immigrants are seen as somehow different from the mythic melting-pot immigrants of the past. According to census numbers, just over 50 percent of third-generation Hispanics intermarry today. In 1900, for you immigration history buffs, the third-largest paper in New York City was German-language. And yet, all German-Americans I know today are pretty much American-Americans.

And if we're really worried that this generation of immigrants doesn't want to become Americans, why does this bill make citizenship so difficult to obtain? There's no good reason to make the heads of households, eight years after the fact, go back to their countries of origin to apply - other than to appear tough or to try to show that amnesty isn't really amnesty at all, or maybe you've got stock in the Mexican tourist industry.

As I look at the bill, three questions come immediately to mind. One, could this plan work when other plans have famously failed to control the border? Two, can this plan pass with a lame-duck president pushing it? And, of course, finally, if the bill passes, will Tancredo's head explode?

For Tancredo, this is his main chance. He's running as a one-issue candidate, and his issue is suddenly the one everyone is talking about. He's already started the bomb-throwing, telling The Washington Post that George Bush is "so desperate for a legacy and a domestic policy win that he is willing to sell out the American people and our national security."

Once again, Tancredo is walking right up the, uh, border of calling Bush a traitor. But that's Tancredo, the back-bencher.

If he wants to be a genuine presidential candidate, it gets a little tougher. He would have to show that he can actually have an impact on the debate. Writing in National Review Online, David Frum said Tancredo's ineffectual candidacy was actually hurting the anti-illegal-immigration cause.

Tancredo admits the bill should get through the Senate, where the question is how many amendments will get tacked on in a week's worth of debate. Labor doesn't like the guest-worker program. Republicans don't like the Z-visa. Hillary Clinton is promising an amendment to address the new visa point system, which favors job skills over family ties.

But the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi is insisting the Bush administration deliver at least 70 Republicans, may be a different story. Pelosi is saying if it's not a bipartisan bill, the Democrats see no reason to take all the heat themselves.

Then there's the real question: Can the program possibly work? I ask Salazar why anyone should believe this bill would actually stop people desperate for jobs from crossing the border from Mexico.

He answered with one word: "Triggers."

I thought it was strange, too, even for a guy who wears a cowboy hat. But Salazar explained he meant no benefits begin until certain standards are met. For instance, 18,000 new hires for the Border Patrol. And 270 miles of new fence. An end to "catch and release." That's the beginning of a long list. But you get the picture. The Bush administration is saying it can do all this in 18 months. Let's just say I've been to New Orleans. I've watched Iraq. So I'm skeptical of Bushian timetables, too.

I also know the immigration system we have now is horribly broken. Tancredo can call the program amnesty. I call it a chance for the country to finally get it right.

Read Mike Littwin's "Fair and unbalanced" blog at blogs.rockymountainnews.com/denver/littwin/

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