Sunday, April 9, 2006 | 7:32 a.m.
For a moment Thursday morning it appeared as if the Senate had managed to agree on an immigration bill far more humane than one passed by the House in December.
The House bill would criminalize undocumented aliens, slap businesses with stiff fines if they hired them, reimburse local police officers for enforcing federal immigration law and allow billions to be spent on a forbidding wall between Mexico and the states of Arizona and California.
A much better and more realistic bill was debated last week in the Senate, one that would offer a path to citizenship for a majority of the estimated 11 million undocumented workers in the country. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based research organization, that number includes about 105,000 in Nevada, representing nearly 10 percent of the state's workforce .
Senate leaders held a news conference Thursday morning to say the bill was nearly a done deal. Within hours, however, the optimism was gone and the bill had disintegrated amid partisan bickering.
Senate Republicans accused their Democratic counterparts of sabotaging the bill because they are enjoying popularity among Hispanic voters upset at the harsh, Republican-controlled House bill. Democrats said Republicans spoiled the bill by proposing amendments not in keeping with its spirit. One Republican amendment, for example, would have required the Homeland Security Department to declare U.S. borders secure before guest-worker programs could begin.
Unfortunately, Senate business came to a halt Friday as its members left Washington for a two-week spring break, leaving the immigration bill and other important business unfinished. In our view, the senators should have stayed at least until agreement was reached on the immigration bill.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has even suggested that the immigration bill will not be the first order of business when senators return. In our view, the bill should be the Senate's top priority. And any immigration legislation passed by Congress should contain strong provisions allowing paths to citizenship.
Undocumented workers whose records are clean except for having illegally crossed into our country should have a chance to live the better life they sought.
archive
