Denver Post - Time For Immigration Reform

Op-Ed

By Jared Polis

I have never seen such a disconnect between the will of the American people and Congress. The American people have had it with our broken immigration system. Across the ideological spectrum, no one is happy with the status quo. In the dozens of community forums and town hall meetings I have held across Colorado, I have yet to meet a single person who is satisfied with the way things currently are. States like Arizona are frustrated to the point of diverting their police officers to enforce immigration laws.

Unless Congress acts, more states, counties, and cities will likely pass thuggish and spiteful laws that scare and scapegoat American citizens of certain ethnic heritages.

Unlike the health care debate, which had a deep ideological divide, both conservatives and liberals agree that we can do better when it comes to our broken immigration system. Yet, Congress seems deaf to these cries.

Thankfully, Sens. Harry Reid, Charles Schumer and Robert Menendez recently released a conceptual proposal for immigration reform with a simple theme: If you obey our laws, learn our language and pay our taxes, we will welcome you to America. We can find out who stands in the way of fixing our broken immigration system by turning the Senate proposal into a bill, bringing it to the floor, and seeing which members of Congress dare to oppose it.

Similarly, in the House, I am working to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would secure our borders, restore the rule of law to our country, create jobs for Americans, and prevent illegal immigration from occurring in our country. I was recently appointed to the Judiciary Committee in the House (which has jurisdiction over immigration) to push Congress to address this issue. One of my proposals, which has been included in the House Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill (HR 4321) as well as in the Senate outline, would create jobs by allowing investors and entrepreneurs to come here if they create jobs for Americans.

While the Senate outline isn't perfect, it's the best available. There are parts that I am skeptical about. I don't see why it should take five years to implement a fraud-proof Social Security card, or six years until businesses are required to scan them. I also prefer the House approach of a fixed fine for those who have worked here illegally rather than a much more vague and hard-to- measure calculation of back taxes.

But as Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who studies immigration, has said, the Senate proposal "shows how far the Democrats have moved in terms of tougher and tougher enforcement" and that "across the board you see language that would be very comfortable in a proposal written by Republicans."

Why does this disconnect persist? Should we blame the xenophobes who scream "amnesty" at any reform effort? Or the civil libertarians who oppose any real type of verification of employment status? To find out, we must turn the Senate proposal into a bill and bring it to the floor. Anyone opposing or delaying immigration reform will be seen as directly responsible for making the problem worse. Without swift and bold action like the Senate plan, we will likely have twice as many immigrants living and working illegally within our borders in 10 years.

Strangely, this is precisely where we could be headed. Despite the cry from Main Street, politicians and political consultants still consider it difficult to pass immigration reform.

Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall have both showed leadership in calling upon Senate Majority Leader Reid to fix our immigration system this year. And I am proud that Reps. Ed Perlmutter, Diana DeGette and John Salazar have joined me as co-sponsors of HR 4321.

People shouldn't be able to cross the border without being checked, or to overstay their visas, and businesses shouldn't be able to exploit cheap labor off the books. We must stop playing politics with a problem that we should have fixed long ago.

So let's not replay this Republican vs. Democrat game with immigration. Good ideas and solutions transcend party. This issue is too important, and it's time for us to get behind a plan to replace our broken system with one that works.

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis is a Democrat from Boulder.

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