PALM BEACH POST

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Keep out. Now that you're here . . .

By Dan Moffett

Palm Beach Post Editorial Writer

If you think Americans are deeply conflicted about immigration, you're right. And if you think we're going to get even more conflicted in the months ahead, you're right again.

Take a look at what's going on in Jupiter and in Cochise County, Ariz., and you get some idea of how far our thinking about immigration ranges.

Last week in Jupiter, the town council took a progressive step toward integrating immigrant and migrant workers, regardless of their legal status, into the larger community. Council members approved plans to create a neighborhood resource center for day laborers on property close to the town hall. The center would give workers a place to link up with employers and end the daily calamities on Center Street, where curbside pickups had angered residents. Beyond employment help, the center also could provide legal referrals, health information and English classes.

Meanwhile, in Cochise County, along the Mexican border, hundreds of volunteers, recruited through the Internet from across the country, have gathered to take part in the monthlong Minuteman Project. Their stated mission is to be both civilian patrol and immigration protest group. Some armed with walkie-talkies and some with handguns, they hope to succeed where the U.S. Border Patrol is failing and stem the flow of illegal crossings.

The government's official position is that the Minutemen are a hindrance. They have tripped surveillance devices meant to detect migrants, and, according to The Associated Press, three volunteers are under investigation after a man complained to authorities that he was held against his will and forced to pose for a photo holding a T-shirt with a mocking slogan: "Bryan Barton caught an illegal alien, and all I got was this T-shirt."

The Border Patrol reports that apprehensions of illegal immigrants have fallen sharply since the volunteers arrived.

So, the dichotomy of opinion on immigration is at least as wide as the space between Jupiter and Cochise County. Americans in one place recognize the essential economic role illegal immigrants play in filling the menial jobs no one else will take, so a town is willing to reach out to them. Americans in another place are committed to stopping illegal immigrants from coming and are willing to put themselves on the line to make it happen.

Who is right? Here is where the absurdity of U.S. policy — or non-policy — rears its head: In principle, they both are.

Americans should have every expectation that their borders are secure, especially since 9/11. We are a nation of immigrants, but the immigration that built the nation was legal. The government shouldn't pick and choose the laws it enforces. This is a country with a long history of rewarding people who play by the rules. Is is contrary to American values to reward people who don't.

Yet what incredible contributions illegal immigrants make here each day. Florida could not open for business in the morning without them. They pick the tomatoes, make the hotel beds, care for the children and bus the restaurant tables. They do the work that wouldn't get done. The native population owes a large measure of its prosperity to the hard labor of the stealth population that isn't supposed to be here. Apart from their status, the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants are playing by the rules, paying taxes, following the law and making the nation stronger.

It is impossible to solve the immigration problem without acknowledging its fundamental hypocrisy: We cannot tell people they are unwelcome to come here while we also are telling them that we really need them, and, if they make it here, that plenty of good jobs are waiting.

A solution lies in creating a legal path. More than 60 U.S. senators support an AgJOBS guest-worker program that provides incremental steps to legal status for farmworkers and could be used as the model for larger reform. President Bush has proposed a framework for a similar plan. But political expediency remains the biggest obstacle to change. Congress finds it more fashionable to exploit Terri Schiavo's tragedy and Social Security hysterics than to confront an emotion-charged issue.

Because the federal government continues to shirk its responsibility, zealots march in Arizona and council members brainstorm in Jupiter. In their own ways, both have the right idea.