A basis for compromise on immigration

Jim Bacon, North Las Vegas

Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010 | 2:04 a.m.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is making a lot of sense when it comes to immigration reform, and as can be expected, paying a political price back home for it. Graham is willing to give those who are here illegally a pathway to citizenship. Many (including me) think such a pathway is akin to amnesty and not acceptable.

But Graham wants something else to be part of immigration reform. He wants us to reconsider the 14th Amendment’s clause that grants U.S. citizenship to any person born on U.S. soil.

That clause was needed when it was written to guarantee that all those who had been held as slaves would be U.S. citizens, and rightfully so. But today it offers a strong inducement for illegal immigration. President Ronald Reagan tried to address the issue by granting amnesty to a large number of people. And today we have a much larger number present illegally.

Graham wants to remove the inducements for illegal immigration as much as possible so that we don’t have the same problem again after giving today’s illegal immigrants legal status.

I would support a compromise that allowed a pathway to citizenship in exchange for having the standard for U.S. citizenship at birth be set at having at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen (by birth or naturalization). Combine this with stricter enforcement of hiring laws, and I think the problem of illegal immigration will be greatly reduced along with the burdens on border protection personnel.