Posted by
Patrick Henry on Friday, July 02, 2010 10:15:58 PM
When President Obama made his recent immigration speech he stated that
reform was impossible without Republican votes. In so doing, he presented
the GOP with a golden opportunity to seize the initiative to resolve what is our
national scandal, prove to Latinos objectively that they are not, as Democrats
have painted them, anti-immigrant and, at the same time, demonstrate problem-
solving leadership that can propel them into legislative majorities.
Republicans should promptly begin informal across-the-aisle conversations
with the Blue Dogs, border state Democrats and perhaps even the White House,
proposing a reasoned and deliberate process that, while probably not giving
either party exactly what it wants, would nevertheless provide the country with
a plan, security, purpose, closure and peace around this thorny issue.
Such a plan would hinge on a series of linked issues in which progress toward
what one party considers most important would be conditioned by and corollary
to progress toward the priority of the other. It's basic conflict resolution strategy
that assumes and demands good faith on both sides, and it can work.
There will, of course, be pre-conditions. Those on the right favoring mass
deportations will not get those, while those on the left favoring open borders will
have to step back and think about a second choice. Areas of mutual interest need
to be identified, i.e., the costs of mass legalization, the qualifications for limited
amnesty, actually securing the border, enforcement against those who remain in
the country but choose not to participate in an amnesty offer, policing hiring and
verification practices by business and the diplomatic ramifcations of securing the
southern border. Benchmarks must be established that measure progress toward
each side's priorities, and a watchdog designated to be certain that such progress
is fair and equitable to both.
If issues arise where the parties perceive that goals are attainable by one or the
other but not by both (the formal definition of conflict), a team of arbiters outside
congress and independent of the administration (perhaps comprised of the border
state governors and a representative from the Chamber of Commerce) should be
established to propose equitable resolutions commensurate with the process that
has been set in motion.
On issues like free enterprise versus statism, national security versus individual
liberties and Republican versus Democrat, the moral imperatives often become
so abstract as to be lost in the heat of debate. But the immigration issue should
be different, because we are not talking about ideas, philosophies, profits or laws
so much as we are talking about the fate of living, breathing human beings. Those
referred to alternately as "immigrant workers" or "illegal aliens" have names and
families, hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows. And to turn them into political
punching bags, pawns in a labor versus capital game, and votes for one party or
the other is flatly immoral and completely unworthy of the United States of
America. Surely both Democrats and Republicans of goodwill can at least agree
on that.
In tomorrow's post, we'll look at how some of the linkages that conjoin the
disparate positions might be established to come up with a working solution to
what is fast becoming an unmanageable problem.