Back to Square One on Immigration

Opponents of comprehensive immigration reform are undoubtedly congratulating themselves on the apparent demise yesterday of S. 1348. The bill failed to win enough votes in the Senate for cloture and a final vote. Leading the charge to defeat the bill were a group of Republicans opposed to just about any legalization or expansion of visas for low-skilled workers.

We’ve made the case at the Center for Trade Policy Studies for an immigration system that recognizes the need of our growing economy for more foreign-born workers and the benefits we would enjoy from more legal immigration. The only alternative offered by opponents of reform is to spend more on the same enforcement efforts that have failed in the past to stop illegal immigration. Conservatives who are normally skeptical of big government place all their hope in dramatic increases in spending for border enforcement, longer fences to nowhere, more raids on U.S. workplaces, and more red tape and national ID cards for American workers.

The bill before the Senate was flawed in many ways. The number of temporary worker visas was insufficient, its interior enforcement provisions too intrusive, the point system too convoluted. But the bill was at least pointing in the right direction.

The Republicans who brought the bill down have yet to put forward any practical and principled alternative.