Three of the leading congressional advocates of the comprehensive reform legislation that will be debated in the Senate and House over the next several months made solemn pledges this week about what the bill would offer. If what Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) promised matches up with what the bill actually provides, it would represent an historic compromise to resolve our long-simmering immigration policy crisis. It will meet a key test. It will be hard-headed, but not hard-hearted.
Of course, the big question here is: Will the bill turn out to be Son of IRCA, the second legislative generation of the empty promises of the poorly named Immigration Reform and Control Act?
Said Schumer: "The Senate and the American people will support common-sense, balanced solutions to future immigration and the 11 million [people in the country illegally] provided that they have assurance that we will not have future waves of illegal immigration."
Said McCain: "We will have a secure border, and we won't have a third wave of people come to this country illegally. ... The employer will not be able to hire someone who's in the country illegally. As soon as the word gets out that even if you get into this country, there's not going to be a job there, that dries up the flow."
Said Becerra: "We have to prove to the American people that we can solve this problem once and for all. ... That we can come up with something (so) that bipartisanly people can say, 'This time, we're telling you that it's permanent.' We will address the border, make sure we can enforce it the way people want us to. We will address the workplace, making sure that people aren't able to take jobs unless they have the right to work in the country. And we will address the issue of some 11 million people. ... And so, that's what we're going to do. And I think the American people will be watching with interest. And I think they will say, 'Get it done, but get it done right.'"
Now it is time for detailed analysis of the bill. If it can reasonably be expected to deliver on those promises, it should be made law. By that same standard, if it charts a course to the badlands of fool-us-twice territory, it should be amended to take us to the land that its advocates have now promised.