Worth Reading Untying The Knot Of Immigration Real Reform Must Be More Than Enhanced Enforcement The Arizona Republic/ October 31, 2005 Finally. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says the Senate will take up immigration legislation early next year. It's a welcome - and overdue - promise to tackle a monumental task. Immigration reform will take a comprehensive plan, one that reflects the complexity of the issue and wins bipartisan support. It has to include all the components necessary to deal with the current crisis and avert a future one. Any lawmaker who wants to simply enhance border enforcement is either engaging in wishful thinking or looking for a trophy bill to display on next year's re-election campaign trail. Real reform is a bigger challenge. A real solution demands that Congress address the 11 million undocumented people currently here. They need to be offered some form of legal status in exchange for identifying themselves and demonstrating that they have been otherwise law-abiding and productive members of society. For the sake of winning their cooperation - and retaining a needed workforce - they need to be allowed to stay on the job after paying a fine. They need a chance to earn permanent residency. A bill by Arizona's Sen. John McCain and Reps. Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake does all that. In addition, comprehensive reform has to include a means for future guest workers to legally enter the country and be tracked. The McCain bill does that, too. There also must be a quick, effective and accurate system for employers to verify that applicants are eligible to work here. Once this system is operating, tough enforcement will be necessary to ensure that employers no longer hire undocumented immigrants. With those measures in place, border enforcement will be much easier because the people who currently cross the border to work here illegally will use the ports of entry. Those left to sneak across the desert likely will be criminals or drug smugglers. They will be much easier to catch by a Border Patrol force that is no longer overwhelmed by the masses currently crossing Arizona's southern border. It won't be easy to come up with a comprehensive reform package. But that is what's needed. The nation waited a long time for Congress to get ready to deal with this problem. It needs to be dealt with in a realistic and complete way. Finally. TOP