America has always been a land of immigrants, a place where the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” could come in search of a better life.
This is not to say that we have always welcomed immigrants with open arms. In the 1920s, driven by nativist fears and concerns that foreigners were taking over too many jobs, the government implemented quotas on immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, leaving many would-be Americans out in the cold.
The problems posed by immigrants then still exist today, and solutions are just as hard to come by. Fortunately, no one is talking about a new set of quotas. Many of our lawmakers are, in fact, at the opposite extreme.
Last night, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of legislation that would legalize illegal immigrants over time and establish a guest-worker program under which hundreds of thousands of foreigners would come to the country every year to work. The bill will face a tough challenge from Republicans who don’t want to encourage “amnesty” for those who break the law — especially when there are many immigrants waiting to enter the country the legal way.
Those Republicans do have a point. We shouldn’t be telling immigrants that it’s OK to come here the wrong way. And there are legitimate concerns about encouraging illegals to come here when they’re willing to work for far less than most American workers.
But it’s also our responsibility to act compassionately toward the millions of illegal immigrants who are already here. Illegals are constantly forced to live in the shadows. They work for pitiful wages in pitiful conditions, but they can’t do anything about it without the ability to unionize or report workplace violations to the government. It would be nice if we could say that they shouldn’t have come here in the first place, but sadly, what’s here is usually better than wherever they came from.
Some sort of compromise is needed. We need to help the illegals who are already here, and the Judiciary Committee’s proposal to enable illegal immigrants to become citizens more easily is a good one. But we shouldn’t be encouraging more illegals to cross our borders; border security should therefore be a priority when the House and Senate draft their final legislation. America can, and should, remain a land of immigrants. Congress can ensure that it does by passing immigration reform that makes sense for everyone involved.