Macon Telegraph
January 22, 2007

When Congress adjourned last year, lawmakers parted ways deeply divided over how, or even if, there could be an agreement on legislation intended to address the problem of illegal immigration into the United States. Both the House and Senate wanted to approach the problem from vastly different directions: The House wanted to put the top priority on closing the Mexico-U.S. borders while the Senate wanted to deal with the millions of people living and working here illegally with a guest-worker program.

Now, Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican, is seeking to bring the two sides back to the table with a proposal that has the potential of leading to serious immigration reform. His plan addresses both problems, but puts priority on sealing the 2,000 miles of common border before turning to those in the country illegally. Incidentally, Isakson offered this as a compromise last year, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, but it was voted down. However, it drew more support than he expected, prompting him to bring it back up.

It's a good move. While Isakson's proposal probably doesn't go far enough in addressing the huge number of illegal aliens in the U.S. now, it provides an excellent jumping-off point. What is important now is for Congress to resume work on a solution. Our lawmakers realize this is a huge problem that cannot be relegated again to the back burner. It makes little difference how they proceed, just that they do proceed.

According to the newspaper report, Isakson's plan, which would cost from $4 billion to $6 billion, calls for adding 14,000 new border guards, 250 new port inspectors, 20,000 detention-center beds, a new identification card that would be far more difficult to forge and unmanned surveillance aircraft that would provide 24-hour border surveillance. The measure is weakest where it would permit those in the country illegally to have a year to come forward. Those who have no criminal background would be given a permit to work and two more years before they would have to return home.

Again, it's not a perfect plan. The United States does need an honest effort, though, on the part of Congress to face a problem that is growing more difficult with each passing day. Isakson's compromise makes a good try at appealing to a wide spectrum of lawmakers. It may just be the best shot we have of achieving immigration reform.