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Sí se puede, but not easily |
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By John Fortier
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Posted: 05/02/07 06:04 PM [ET] |
“Sí se puede” (“Yes, it can be done”) is the cheer heard at many pro-immigration rallies. And yes, it is possible that Congress will pass immigration reform this year, but only with extraordinary bipartisan and inter-branch cooperation.
Immigration reform in 2007 looks a lot like NAFTA in 1993. It is not often that a president of one party relies more on the support of the other party than on his own. President Clinton did so on NAFTA, an agreement negotiated by his predecessor, George H.W. Bush. On paper, NAFTA could have passed with about three-quarters of congressional Republicans supporting it, and less than a quarter of Democrats. But it was not so simple to match primarily Republican support in Congress with the signature of a Democratic president. There was also the issue of trust; both political parties needed to feel that the other party had sufficiently bought into the deal for it to proceed.
For Clinton to get Republican votes for NAFTA, he had to show he was invested and deliver more than a bare minimum of Democratic support. And Clinton himself did not want to be so isolated from his own party to do the deal without at least a good chunk of congressional Democrats.
The oddity of this political dance was that Clinton had to lurch toward the left in order ultimately to get a deal that had most of its support on the right. Clinton negotiated a set of side agreements on labor and environmental issues to make NAFTA more palatable to Democrats. With a bloc of Democratic votes in place, Republicans could come on board.
On immigration reform, President Bush did not have the support of a majority of his congressional Republicans for comprehensive immigration reform in the 109th. If Bush’s plan had been put to a vote in the House, it probably would have passed with significant Democratic support and a few Republicans. But Republican leaders did not want to vote on something that most of their caucus would oppose.
With Democrats taking over in the 110th, the vote total for comprehensive immigration reform has grown. But both Democrats and President Bush know that increased Republican buy-in is the key to its passage.
That is why the president’s new proposal is tougher on illegal immigration than his earlier one, increasing penalties on those undocumented workers who want their status regularized and requiring them to return to their home countries to apply for reentry, to list two examples. His gambit is to get more than the 23 Senate Republicans who supported the McCain-Kennedy bill in the 109th and (the more difficult task) to secure 60 to 80 House Republican votes.
The key Senate Republicans are Jon Kyl (Ariz.) and John Cornyn (Texas), who are negotiating with the White House and Senate immigration reform supporters. Kyl and Cornyn voted against McCain-Kennedy in the 109th, but could support another version of comprehensive immigration reform, and their support might bring along a few other Republicans.
A central issue is devising a strong and workable system for employers to check the legal status of their employees. But the discussions are also addressing the amount of fines assessed to undocumented workers, whether temporary workers will be precluded from ever becoming citizens, and the balance between legal immigrants allowed in for the purpose of family reunification and those who have needed workplace skills.
While the support of Republicans like Kyl and Cornyn will make the bill more popular on the Republican side, some fear that they might lose some Democrats in the process.
At the end of the day, it is a difficult balancing act — but, yes, it is possible.
Fortier is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. |
