When Congress passed the last truly major immigration reform in 1965 it was supported by the majority of Democratic and Republican lawmakers. That’s the right way to pass big laws that can have transformative effects on society.
With the House of Representatives now tangling over immigration reform following passage of a comprehensive Senate bill last month, there seems little prospect for anything approaching that level of comity. Many have declared the Senate immigration reform bill dead on arrival.
But the road ahead may not be as impassable as it seems. A new poll from a pro-immigration Republican group shows that nearly three-quarters of Republican voters would support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants if coupled with tougher border security. There is surprising bipartisan agreement on most of the Senate bill’s provisions and plausible paths on the very tough issues that still divide the two parties. Here’s a way to get across the finish line:
• Emphasize agreement. Expanding high-skilled immigration, luring immigrant entrepreneurs, requiring employers to verify the legal status of new hires and admitting more farmworkers all enjoy overwhelming bipartisan backing. Lawmakers should emphasize that these measures would be a shot in the arm for the still anemic U.S. economy.
• Cut losses. There are, to be sure, many members of the House who will not vote for any sort of comprehensive immigration legislation, and there’s no point in supporters of reform wasting their time to try to win them over.
• Don’t trust. Even potential Republican supporters do not trust the Obama administration on enforcement, particularly on securing the Mexican border. Fortunately, these lawmakers don’t need to. This bill will set immigration rules for a generation; President Barack Obama will be gone in a few years.
• And verify. Congress should demand performance and accountability on such key measures as the apprehension rate of illegal border crossers and the number of those who overstay visas. Fortunately, these provisions are already in the House Homeland Security Committee bill. Emphasizing this fact would meet a key demand of many wavering GOP members — to demonstrate genuine results on border security rather than just throwing more money at the problem.
Edward Alden is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and was the project director for the 2009 Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy.
