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Murdering truth - Killing journalists is the ultimate censorship

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

April 6, 2006

No act of censorship, no crime against freedom of the press is more total than the murder of a journalist. Since the 1980s, a deadly epidemic of assassinations of reporters, editors, columnists and publishers has swept through Latin America. Compounding this evil scourge, relatively few of the perpetrators are ever brought to justice.

By the careful count of the Inter American Press Association, 295 journalists in this hemisphere have been targeted and killed from November 1987 to mid-March 2006 because of their work. Almost all of these killings have occurred in Latin America, from Mexico south through Central America and on across the often violence-scarred countries of South America.

Two countries in particular, Colombia and Mexico, have become journalists' graveyards. Over the 19 years that the IAPA has been chronicling these murders, 118 journalists have been killed in Colombia and 51 in Mexico.

In almost every case, these are not random deaths or the products of normal journalistic risks associated with covering wars and other dangerous events. On the contrary, these are cases in which journalists whose work offended drug traffickers, criminal gangs, corrupt politicians or powerful interests public and private were selected, marked for death, stalked and murdered.

To date, few of those who committed these murders and fewer still of those who ordered them have been identified, apprehended, tried and convicted. In part, this failure is rooted in Latin America's frequently dysfunctional law enforcement and criminal justice systems that regularly fail to solve anything more complicated than routine homicides. But the larger, and far more ominous, cause is the protected status of the illicit interests the killers serve.

In Colombia, the cocaine trade's narco-traffickers, guerrillas of both the left and right and other assorted terrorists operate as lawless states within a state. In Mexico, rampant corruption, criminal gangs and powerful drug cartels – notably including the Tijuana-based Arellano Félix Organization – breed pervasive violence against the rule of law. Journalists are targeted for elimination precisely because their work uncovers these illicit activities and those behind them.

The Inter American Press Association, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and other advocates of press freedoms regularly deplore lethal violence against journalists. So grievous has the threat grown that the IAPA is now waging a hemisphere-wide campaign to publicize these murders and pressure governments to bring those responsible to justice. Lamentably, progress is slow.

These killings represent direct attacks not only against journalists and their news organizations but against the very fabric of law that holds societies together and makes progress possible. As with other offences against press freedoms, the ultimate losers are millions of ordinary people whose access to information is curtailed and whose ability to hold their governments accountable is accordingly diminished.

Octagon, good response. You can email that to our papers editor in response to their editorial. I'll let you know if it gets printed. letters@uniontrib.com

Octagon, good response. You can email that to our papers editor in response to their editorial. I'll let you know if it gets printed. letters@uniontrib.com

I concur...most excellent.

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Octagon, good response. You can email that to our papers editor in response to their editorial. I'll let you know if it gets printed. letters@uniontrib.com

I made up an email address and sent it.

It will be interesting to see how much spam the address receives :-)

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No animals were harmed in the making of the above post... much.

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Octagon, good response. You can email that to our papers editor in response to their editorial. I'll let you know if it gets printed. letters@uniontrib.com

I made up an email address and sent it.

It will be interesting to see how much spam the address receives :-)

The San Diego Union-Tribune welcomes letters to the editor. Because of the number of letters received, and to allow as many readers as possible to be published, it is the policy of the newspaper to publish no more than one letter from the same author within 120 days. Letters may be edited. It is also our policy to publish letters supporting or opposing a particular issue in a ratio reflecting the number received on each side.

To be considered for publication, a letter must include an address, daytime phone number and, if faxed or mailed, be signed. It may be sent to Letters Editor, The San Diego Union-Tribune, Post Office Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191, faxed to (619) 260-5081 or e-mailed to letters@uniontrib.com. Letters submitted may be used in print or in digital form in any publication or service authorized by the Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

Defend freedom - A free press is vital for Latin America

UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

April 7, 2006

In the six-part editorial series that ends today, we have argued that press freedoms in Latin America are, as elsewhere, far more than an abstract ideal: That, in fact, they are essential to democratic government and the rule of law. We've also made the corollary point, that infringements on freedom of the press in Latin America inevitably weaken the region's fragile democracies.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of examples of this latter point. Corruption, both public and private, flourishes in Latin America in inverse proportion to the press' ability to expose it. Governments can be held accountable by their citizens only when that citizenry is adequately informed, which is a free press' primary responsibility. Similarly, informed discussion of public issues is directly related to a vigorously functioning press free to report, analyze and comment.

When these essential press roles are thwarted, the public interest is damaged.

In Cuba, where no free press exists, the ability of Cubans to challenge Fidel Castro's communist dictatorship is effectively nonexistent. In Venezuela, President Hugo ChÁvez is steadily throttling press freedoms that impede his autocratic rule. In Colombia, with the hemisphere's largest number by far of murdered journalists, press freedoms and the rule of law struggle to survive against insurgency, terrorism and rampant drug trafficking.

In Mexico, electoral defeat of the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2000 liberated the Mexican press from the burden of the PRI's subtle but often effective forms of intimidation. But Mexican journalists still face a more lethal form of pressure. Drug traffickers, assorted criminals and corrupt politicians exercise their own version of censorship by murdering journalists they deem especially troublesome.

Given what's at stake, then, it should be obvious that defending press freedoms should be more than solely a professional concern of journalists and their news organizations. A free press – and its corollaries, freedom of expression and freedom of information – should be a prominent agenda item for all international human rights organizations.

These should include private-sector groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and also the major public-sector organizations, the United Nations' new Human Rights Council and the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The European Union can honor its democratic ideals by persistently advocating press freedoms.

The U.S. government – notwithstanding its current skirmishes with the press over confidential sources and access to information – can also do more to defend and promote freedom of the press in this hemisphere.

Nearly every government in the Americas (excepting Cuba, of course) has signed the Inter American Press Association's Declaration of Chapultepec, enshrining freedom of the press, freedom of expression and freedom of information. It now remains to hold these governments to Chapultepec's lofty principles, and thus promote Latin America's best hope of achieving a better future for its peoples.

Mexico's obligations on immigration

MARCELA SANCHEZ
THE WASHINGTON POST

April 8, 2006

At the end of his two-day summit with Mexican and Canadian counterparts last week, President Bush took pains to praise Mexico for what appears to be a significant change in its attitude about immigration.

“I don't know if people recognize,” said Bush, answering a question about whether his position on immigration could hurt the Republican Party, “but ... all aspects of the Mexican government came together to send a clear message to the American people, the Mexican government understands it has a responsibility ... to protect the border.”

Bush was referring to “Mexico and the Migration Phenomenon,” a document developed by a broad swath of Mexican leaders – legislators, government officials, academics, immigration experts and community activists – and approved by the Mexican Congress on Feb. 16. Readers of The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times may have seen excerpts of the document, which states that Mexico has a “shared responsibility” for migration over its 2,000-mile border with the United States, in full-page ads placed last month by the Mexican government.

“Mexico and the Migration Phenomenon” commits the country to enforcing its immigration laws, combating human smuggling and securing Mexico's borders. More importantly, it recognizes that “as long as a large number of Mexicans do not find in their own country an economic and social environment that facilitates their full development and well-being ... conditions for emigrating abroad will exist.”

Until this year, the Mexican government claimed it could do nothing to stem the migrant flow, its hands tied by a constitutional clause that ensures freedom of movement by any Mexican, including would-be migrants.

“We used to hear that all the time,” recalled Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., who for more than 20 years has been deeply involved with U.S. immigration policy. Kolbe says he perceives a “sea change” in Mexican attitudes on immigration, with Mexicans now interpreting the constitutional clause “in a way that 'freedom of movement' doesn't mean they get to violate laws in other countries.”

The concept of “shared responsibility” developed as a way to get beyond the strained, recriminating – and uncooperative – north-south relations concerning the drug trade in the 1990s. Back then, Latin American countries were convinced that the illicit drug trade was simply a problem of insatiable U.S. consumers.

Their argument was that if the wealthiest country in the world couldn't stop drug abuse, there was nothing a poorer country could do against powerful drug lords – an argument not unlike the one made by many in Mexico over immigration. As long as a demand for labor remains, they say, a supply from the south would continue.

On the drug issue, it took the painful realization among Latin Americans that drug use could also become a domestic problem, and worse yet, that the corruptive power of drug lords was threatening their own weak democratic institutions. Countries south of the Rio Grande began to concede they had a shared responsibility to fight drugs.

This evolution toward a more cooperative approach has not stopped the flow of drugs. But, at least in the case of Colombia, it has helped bring about a more comprehensive understanding in Washington of the root of the problem. No longer was Colombia seen just as a source of illicit drugs, but rather as a country with deep economic, social and political failings fueled by illegal industries such as drug trafficking that both exploited and worsened institutional weaknesses.

Under that broader understanding, the U.S. Congress got behind Plan Colombia and created the largest U.S. aid package to a Latin American country in history. Had Colombia not convinced Washington that it understood its own obligation to pick up part of the bill and commit its citizens, especially the more privileged classes, to recognize their role in Colombia's internal strife, Plan Colombia would not have been supported as strongly as it has been.

The newfound concept of shared responsibility in Mexico won't stop the flow of immigrants. But it might reorganize Mexicans around the country's own obligations toward immigration and engender good faith in Washington. More significantly, it may promote a more comprehensive understanding of the root cause of immigration – income disparity – so far largely absent from the debate on Capitol Hill.

It is still hard to imagine Washington approving a large aid package to help its southern neighbor deal with the root cause of the problem (just as it was inconceivable barely a couple years before Plan Colombia, when U.S.-Colombia relations had hit bottom). But one thing seems certain – it would be unthinkable without at least an honest effort from Mexico to show it is ready to take on some of the burden.

(got this via forwarded email)

Dear President Bush:

I'm about to plan a little trip with my family and extended family, and I would like to ask you to assist me. I'm going to walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and I need to make a few arrangements. I know you can help with this.

I plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws. I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here.

So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Vicente Fox, that I'm on my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:

1. Free medical care for my entire family.

2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might ! need, whether I use them or not.

3. All government forms need to be printed in English.

4. I want my kids to be taught by English-speaking teachers.

5. Schools need to include classes on American culture and history.

6. I want my kids to see the American flag flying on the top of the flag pole at their school with the Mexican flag flying lower down.

7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.

8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.

9. I do not plan to have any car insurance, and I won't make any effort to learn local traffic laws.

10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from Pres. Fox to leave me alone, please be sure that all police officers speak English.

11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.

12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, and don't enforce any labor laws or tax laws.

13. Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice and never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might place on the economy.

I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all the people who come to the U.S. from Mexico. I am sure that Pres. Fox won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.

However, if he gives you any trouble, just invite him to go quail hunting with your V.P.

Thank you so much for your kind help.

Sincerely,

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me@rescam.org

(got this via forwarded email)


I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for all the people who come to the U.S. from Mexico. I am sure that Pres. Fox won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.

However, if he gives you any trouble, just invite him to go quail hunting with your V.P.

Thank you so much for your kind help.

Sincerely,

That is So True!

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Hooz the babe on the left?

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me@rescam.org

Immigration is everything in this election

RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR.
THE UNION-TRIBUNE

April 9, 2006

Common sense and conventional wisdom can be valuable assets in politics. Yet here in Southern California, there is a place where those things go to die.

It's the conservative 50th Congressional District, where 18 candidates – a mixture of Republicans, Democrats and independents – are vying for the chance to fill out the term of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in a special election on Tuesday.

The ex-congressman, who resigned last year after pleading guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes, was sentenced in March to more than eight years in prison.

Common sense was the first casualty in this race. The Cunningham scandal was about greedy scoundrels buying access to the political process. So you would think that Republicans would want to keep their distance from someone who makes a living selling access to the political process.

And yet, according to some polls, the front-running Republican in the race is former Rep. Brian Bilbray – a Washington, D.C.-based political retread who turned an earlier stint in Congress into a second career as a lobbyist.

Bilbray has already proved to be a nice target for his opponents. Some of them like to say they want to end the “revolving door” of politicians who serve as lobbyists and then remake themselves as politicians.

When I mentioned to a conservative Republican that Bilbray could well be the GOP nominee, it took him only a few seconds to dream up a biting political ad that other candidates could use to fire away at the politician-turned-lobbyist-turned-politician:

“Duke Cunningham sold his office to lobbyists and special interests. This time, let's cut out the middle man and elect the lobbyist.”

Given the corruption to which this district has been witness, there is a built-in advantage for “the money guys” – Alan Uke, Bill Hauf, Richard Earnest and Eric Roach, four self-made millionaire businessmen who you would assume can't be bought. All four Republicans are funding all or part of their campaigns, and most have sworn off accepting PAC money and other special-interest contributions. Two have invested more than $1 million in the race.

The rap against the four businessmen is that they don't understand the political system. But in this district, that's a good thing. The political pros have made a mess of things. We could use a novice.

At least that's the conventional wisdom. Of course, that's something else that is taking a beating in this race. The conventional wisdom suggests that Republicans should tread lightly with the immigration issue so as not to alienate Latino voters who sometimes worry about immigrants being scapegoated.

That goes double for California Republicans who should have learned their lesson in 1994. That's when the state GOP, under the guidance of former Gov. Pete Wilson, helped push through Proposition 187, a spiteful ballot initiative that would have denied education and other services to illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children. (It was struck down by a federal judge.)

The initiative was bad enough, but the campaign to pass it quickly became racist and repugnant with television commercials showing stampedes of Mexicans running across the border. The result: Latinos turned toward the Democratic Party, and Republicans in California nearly wound up on the endangered species list.

As it turns out, the 50th Congressional District is now about 20 percent Latino, a fact that doesn't seem to concern the many candidates – particularly Republicans – who are trying to exploit the illegal immigration issue for their own political gain. At the top of the list is Bilbray, the lobbyist, who boasts that his clients have included the Federation for American Immigration Reform. FAIR is a scary outfit that – according to its literature, Web site and spokesman – not only wants to end illegal immigration but also limit legal immigration.

Several of the other candidates say they want to build a 2,000-mile wall along the border with Mexico. Some want to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. A few want to deport people.

But, especially from Republicans, one thing you don't hear much about is fining and arresting employers – an approach that Uke told the Union-Tribune editorial board would be hard-hearted.

How touching. Now that's what I call a compassionate conservative.

This part of the campaign is a cartoon: Two of the candidates – State Sen. Bill Morrow and former Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian – have actually been arguing over which of them is endorsed by the Minuteman Project. You know things are bad when politicians are fighting over the vigilante vote.

And then there's Jeff Newsome, a second-tier Republican candidate who happens to be a law enforcement officer and likes to brag at debates that he's the only one in the race who has “ever arrested an illegal immigrant.”

It's a curious image given that there wouldn't be a special election in the first place had the person who once held this seat – a U.S. citizen, and a U.S. congressman to boot – not been hauled off in handcuffs.

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me@rescam.org

The United States is fast approaching the moment of decision on immigration policy

By Newt Gingrich; former House speaker, is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His most recent book is “Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America.”

April 9, 2006

The United States is fast approaching the moment of decision on immigration policy. The choices Congress makes in the near future will have dramatic and far-reaching consequences for the future of both the United States and Latin America. The choice is between a future of hope and a future of despair for millions.

From the time of his first trip abroad to Mexico in 1979 to the mass he celebrated in Mexico City's Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe in 1999, Pope John Paul II consistently spoke of America as a “continent of hope.” And by America, John Paul was referring to North and South America to express his desire for greater unity among the peoples of the two continents as well as to identify the closer bonds that the peoples and nations of North, South and Central America seek with each other.

For John Paul II, America is a continent of hope in part owing to the force of its numerous youth, the value given to family and the deep religiosity of its peoples. America as a continent of hope is a beautiful and compelling vision that Congress should keep in mind as it debates a comprehensive immigration reform plan. We, the people of the United States of America, must never lose sight of the self-evident truths affirmed at our founding. That we are all created equal – citizen and non-citizen alike, and that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If these truths are to have any meaning, then we must recognize that every person has an inherent human dignity that must be respected, including those in the U.S. illegally. And that these truths morally bind us to create a workable immigration solution so that legal status and legal channels for migration replace illegal ones just as a controlled border replaces an uncontrolled border.

A situation of pervasive illegal immigration to the United States marginalizes the migrant in society, exposes the migrant to exploitation, and has an insidious effect on the rule of law – undermining the very foundations of our democratic society. We see how it already teaches some American businesses to violate the law routinely. Guided by our core values and by the moral and practical imperatives for immigration reform, the hopeful news is that there is growing political agreement around a comprehensive immigration plan that includes total border control, stepped-up enforcement of employment laws, a temporary worker program, and a more aggressive commitment to educating new citizens about U.S. history and the English language.

Comprehensive immigration reform here at home, however, should be considered as only one strategy within the pursuit of the larger vision of America as a continent of hope. For the United States, fulfilling this vision means that we must constantly conceive and implement strategies to achieve greater safety, health, prosperity and freedom for every person in the hemisphere. It also means that we should work with willing governments of Latin America so that they can carry out the difficult domestic economic reforms that will expand opportunities for their peoples. While U.S. immigration policy has clearly failed to keep up with the millions of migrants who have come to the U.S. in search of economic opportunities, it must be readily acknowledged that this failure is owed in substantial part to the failed economic policies of their home-country governments.

For too long, these governments have placed too much reliance on foreign remittances from the United States to sustain their economies. These remittances have eased the pressures on their domestic politicians to act, but it has come at a terrible human cost. Failure to create jobs at home has sent millions to the United States and has emptied much of the countryside, devastating many villages, especially in Mexico. Not only in the countryside, but in 31 percent of Mexican municipalities, population is shrinking due to migration to the United States. This situation has torn apart families and caused tremendous suffering for a large part of the population.

Economic opportunities in the United States, including a legal temporary worker program, can surely provide hope for individuals who seek a better life for themselves and their families, but it cannot be the only or the primary source of hope in the Americas. Latin America in general, and Mexico especially, has tremendous natural resources, hard-working populations and wonderfully rich cultures. Mexico has a free trade agreement with the United States and has the largest economy in the world as its neighbor and market for its products. Its economy must be made to work. As U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza said in a May 2005 speech in Mexico City: “Let's be honest with each other. Reliance on remittances from the U.S. and windfall revenues from high oil prices is simply not an economic policy.”

It is altogether reasonable that the United States pursue an immigration policy that makes sense to our citizens and is sensible economically. Part of that orderly rational immigration policy is a systematic, effective and enforceable temporary worker program. The program should of course include criminal background checks but should also include a verifiable electronic “smart card” program with biometric identifiers outsourced to a private sector company with experience in operating a secure card program such as Visa, MasterCard or American Express. Enforcing compliance must be focused on holding American employers accountable to the law. Any new proposal should sanction severely employers who willfully break the law by hiring workers without verifying legal status or by failing to pay employment taxes on them.

The key to a legal temporary worker program is ensuring that employers only hire employees with legal status because ultimately if employers don't hire undocumented non-citizens, they will stop coming and most would have to leave. Based on these principles the Senate proposal discussed this week represents a cave-in and not a compromise because it would establish amnesty for those who have successfully broken the law long enough. Moreover, it assigns a responsibility to a federal bureaucracy no one believes it could meet. Not only is it very important that America control its borders for national security reasons, it is imperative that America continue to develop a system to encourage patriotic legal immigration whereby immigrants are on the path to becoming American citizens by being patriotically integrated and assimilated into American society.

At the same time we develop solutions for our immigration policy, we must find ways to work with our Latin American neighbors to seek solutions and economic opportunities for their citizens. There is a danger that the immigration debate in Congress will cause deep divisions. It need not. We must keep our focus on the larger vision of improving every life in the hemisphere and affirming the values we share in solidarity throughout the Americas: faith, family, work, community, freedom, security and peace. Let us not be divided, but united. We are neighbors, friends and families. We must not be disunited.

A workable immigration policy that respects the dignity of the individual and the sanctity of families is within reach. This reform will serve as a critical foundation of law upon which, juntos-junto-together, a continent of hope can be built.

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me@rescam.org

One sensible reform solution exists

By Robert J. Caldwell
San Diego Union Tribune

April 9, 2006

A comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform stalled Friday in the Senate but must, absolutely must, remain a priority for congressional action this year. Despite divisions over immigration reform in both political parties, momentum is finally building toward a compromise solution. Congress and the Bush administration must not allow this rare opportunity to slip away.

President Bush, a prospective majority in the Senate and the Republican leadership in the House are all coalescing around the one sensible solution to this monumental national dilemma.

The outline of that solution, represented in the Senate's compromise legislation, is apparent: Secure the U.S.-Mexico border, provide an earned path to citizenship for several million illegal immigrants worthy enough to qualify, and enact a realistic, enforceable guest-worker program to provide the additional labor needed by America's growing economy.

Despite the procedural snags and partisan infighting that deadlocked the Senate Friday, an apparent Senate majority exists to enact this comprehensive immigration reform. The compromise Senate legislation is endorsed by Sens. John McCain and Ted Kennedy, co-authors of a similar measure; the Senate's majority and minority leaders, Bill Frist and Harry Reid; plus most Republicans and enough Democrats to overcome any opposition.

President Bush is on board, having long ago proposed a comparable reform built around a guest-worker program and a legalization route for employed migrants who could meet specified qualifications for citizenship.

House Republicans passed a border-enforcement bill months ago that addressed only the first one-third of the immigration reform required. It did nothing about either the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already here or the economy's obvious need for migrant labor.

But, in a hugely significant development, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority Leader John Boehner recently announced they are open to compromise with the Senate. Specifically, Hastert and Boehner signaled their willingness to consider adding a guest-worker plan plus humane provisions for illegal immigrants who have long since established roots in the United States. This grand compromise on immigration reform is gathering force because all other approaches fall short; in fact, way short.

Border enforcement alone ignores the vast problem of immigrants already here and the continuing need for migrant labor. Border enforcement plus sanctions for employers who hire illegal immigrants is still an enforcement-only approach; an exclusionist fantasy detached from economic, humanitarian and political realities.

Even the most carefully designed guest-worker plan would be subverted by continued uncontrolled illegal immigration, which is one more imperative reason to regain control of the U.S.-Mexico border.

And no reform can resolve America's immigration dilemmas without devising a plan for dealing with the millions of illegal immigrants living in our midst. Yes, they entered the United States illegally or overstayed their visas. But most now work productively and contribute to the American economy. Many have also established families and community ties in their adopted country.

Granting these millions unconditional amnesty is a non-starter politically, in Congress and the country, and rightly so. It would reward lawbreaking and encourage yet more illegal immigration. But any attempt at mass deportation of 12 million immigrants is similarly unthinkable, for practical reasons alone, to say nothing of the resulting disruptions in the U.S. economy and a humanitarian/political nightmare.

The alternative begins by distinguishing between categories of illegal immigrants, as the Senate compromise does. Those here more than five years – about 7 million of the 12 million – who have clean records and provable employment would be eligible to apply for citizenship after paying a fine and any back taxes they owe, learning English and mastering the basics of American civics.

Separate additional categories would be created for illegal immigrants here for two to five years, and for those who arrived less than two years ago. The former could apply for temporary work visas and might later become eligible for permanent resident alien status and eventual citizenship. Migrants here less than two years would be required to return to their home countries and apply for guest worker status.

No one would pretend that all this isn't hugely complicated, or that enacting and implementing such a comprehensive reform would be easy. It wouldn't be. Having allowed the immigration problem to grow and fester for two decades since the last attempt at reform in 1986, we cannot expect simple solutions.

But doing nothing is clearly not an option. Neither are half measures that leave major portions of the current immigration mess unresolved, or that might actually make things worse.

The still-pending Senate compromise remains the best bet for a comprehensive solution. Congress and President Bush must try anew to enact it.

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me@rescam.org

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