<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/11/opinion/11mon1.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print&position=>
The New York Times April 11, 2005 EDITORIAL A West Too Wild Along a border between Mexico and Arizona, a few dozen gunslingers are patrolling for illegal immigrants, and the fact that they have attracted mostly television cameras so far takes little away from the danger they pose to themselves and others. It would be far saner to leave the patrolling of the border to the border patrol. These self-proclaimed "Minutemen" - whom President Bush has rightly labeled vigilantes - should put their guns away and look where the real solutions to America's flawed immigration policy should be found: in Washington. Mr. Bush is the only one who can really stop the "Minutemen" from taking the law into their own hands. Instead of letting the locals cope with illegal aliens who die in boxcars or commit crimes within the protections of their shadowy world, it's time for the president to take up the cause about which he has said much but done little. Mr. Bush has long talked about a more humane and secure guest-worker plan - often speaking with passion and empathy about his own experiences in Texas. His best speeches about those millions of immigrants who work at the nation's lowliest jobs are usually to Hispanic audiences that know the painful stories well and are part of a voting group the Republicans badly need. While the president has failed to push immigration reform, some of his fellow Republicans, like Representative James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, are seizing the issue, in effect doing the same thing to the immigration debate that the vigilantes are doing on the border. Mr. Sensenbrenner got the House to pass an anti-immigrant measure called the Real ID bill. The Senate should avoid it altogether since the legislation would further penalize those who have escaped to America from politically treacherous regimes by setting up an unnecessarily strict standard for granting asylum. In some cases, immigrants might need written "corroboration" of their persecution from the persecutors themselves. The bill would also bar the federal government from recognizing driver's licenses from states that do not verify the driver's immigration status. For the 11 states that have wisely decided that the point of a driver's license is to make sure someone knows how to drive, that could mean extra trouble. Drivers from those states, which include even Mr. Sensenbrenner's own Wisconsin, might not be able to use their licenses to board airplanes or enter federal buildings. Moreover, this bill comes as the federal government is already outlining new rules for state licenses that have been carefully balanced to weigh these concerns. What Mr. Sensenbrenner's bill really tries to do is turn a driver's license into a de facto national ID card. That issue is too important to be slipped like this through the back door. More ominously, this bill could interfere with the kind of broad bipartisan reform effort that Mr. Bush has appeared to support. A reform package now being put together in the Senate by John McCain of Arizona and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts is the kind of humane legislation that the president should embrace. In the meantime, you have to feel sorry for the people in places like Arizona - the residents, the immigrants and the border police. They hear about the sideshow in Washington while they watch a wrenching daily drama play out in the desert right before their eyes. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' ------------------------ Yahoo! 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