Can we now debate immigration?

The new truth about illegal immigration is that enforcement is working. It is time to give up the fight between pro-immigrant activists who never see an enforcement measure they like and opponents who refuse to recognize that government works.

Along U.S. borders and across the country, measures begun under the George W. Bush administration and refined and extended under President Barack Obama are reducing illegal entries, cracking down on employers and deporting immigrants with criminal records.

The results so far are such that, for the first time in its history, the nation is getting a handle on the enforcement side of controlling immigration. Some of the numbers are dramatic.

More adjustments are needed, especially the development of fraud-proof worker ID cards that would allow for even tighter control over jobs and employers, the most effective enforcement of all. But implementation of that will take more than a decade, and the current electronic system required of all federal contractors and in a growing number of states is now passably working.

What all this means is that it is now time for political leaders in both parties to take the debate away from the shrill extremists and give what upward of two-thirds of all Americans repeatedly tell pollsters they want, in addition to enforcement: Bring the roughly 12 million unauthorized immigrants out of the shadows by offering earned legalization that requires they undergo background checks, learn English and pay taxes; and expand temporary work programs that meet future needs for immigrant workers.

Most Americans recognize that these elements are necessary for any immigration system to work. There is no practical or humane way to kick out 12 million people. And our economy needs them. Earlier reform efforts failed because they lacked both enforcement teeth and legal ways to meet pressing labor demands of both employers and foreign workers.

Obama has too full a plate this fall to lead the charge for such desperately needed comprehensive immigration reform, and so Janet Napolitano, his industrious Homeland Security Department secretary, needs to step into the breach. Her executive experience as a governor and the immigration knowledge she has in coming from the border state of Arizona have made her one of the administration's most effective Cabinet members. But her energies have been focused on improving enforcement and not publicly championing the complementary elements, as she herself recognized in a recent White House meeting with reform activists.

There is some Republican support for reform. Obama, Napolitano and Sen. John McCain share virtually the same immigration views. The president and McCain reportedly have been speaking in private on the issue. The Arizona Republican has been a leader for comprehensive reform, and with the improvement in enforcement, he now has all the political cover he needs to return to the ramparts.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have gotten with the program. New York's Charles Schumer, who is leading the Senate's reform effort, has shown that he supports effective enforcement. He even pleased anti-immigrant news personality Lou Dobbs recently by dropping the use of the euphemism "undocumented" immigrants to call them "illegal."

Aside from Democratic divisions over temporary-worker programs, the main question now is whether populist Republicans in Congress will accept that enforcement is in fact working.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/schumacher-matos/article_72baca88-8aaa-5519-97c5-860c6891ec88.html

We can even do so in alphabetical order, from Abanaki to Zuni!