Animosity and amnesty: a grand failure.(Cover story)

WHEN addressing immigration reform, President Bush repeatedly admonishes, "We need to do this without animosity and without amnesty." The comprehensive bill he strongly supports and the contentious Senate debate it launched provide both, in abundance. The grand-compromise reform fails his stated desire--and also fails to deliver on its stated promises.

Independent analyses of the bill find it unworkable, and recent Senate votes reveal its phony premises. Under the bill, millions of aliens will remain illegal. According to a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), 8.4 million of the estimated 12 million illegal aliens can be expected to gain legal status. The remaining 3.6 million illegal aliens would presumably either voluntarily return home, thereby proving that an attrition strategy works, or remain "in the shadows" while attempting to evade the kind of "mass deportation" the bill's supporters maintain is wholly impractical.

President Bush notes that the 1986 immigration reform failed because "it encouraged more people to come to America illegally." But if this sweeping reform is enacted, millions more will be coming illegally: CBO estimates that the enforcement and worker-verification provisions of the legislation will reduce the net annual flow of illegal aliens by only 25 percent in the short term, and by only 13 percent over the next 20 years.

Experience suggests that newly legalized aliens encourage illegal immigration on the part of their friends and relatives by providing access to jobs and housing. The 1986 immigration reform granted amnesty to almost 3 million illegal aliens. Over the past 20 years, the number of green cards for permanent residency has almost doubled and guest-worker programs have been expanded. According to the grand-compromise bill's theory, these reforms should have reduced the illegal immigration that has dramatically increased in recent years.

Current enforcement loopholes--which the bill fails to address--also contribute to the ongoing illegal-immigration problem. For example, about 40 percent of current illegal aliens overstayed their visas. In 1996, Congress mandated the U.S. VISIT system, a biometric border program that would track entries and exits. Despite the mandate and a scheduled 2005 implementation date, the exit portion of the program has not been implemented. An amendment to the current bill that would have required the full implementation of the system as part of the new reform's enforcement "triggers" was defeated. Without the program in effect, there is no way to know whether visitors and workers have remained in the country illegally.

The illegal aliens who meet the requirements of the bill and are ushered on a path to citizenship would have "prove[d] themselves worthy of a great land," according to President Bush. Of course, only aliens who have violated our immigration laws qualify for the amnesty, but even on its own terms the comprehensive reform's amnesty isn't limited to the worthy. Sen. John Cornyn proposed an amendment to bar the unworthy from legalization--including known gang members, sex offenders, those convicted of felony identity theft, and felony drunk drivers. Sen. Ted Kennedy objected because the proposal "would exclude hundreds of thousands from the benefits in this bill and undermine the bipartisan compromise that [senators] worked so long and so hard to produce." The Cornyn amendment was defeated.

The bill provides legal status to millions of aliens, premised on a showing that they have violated our immigration laws, before any improvements in enforcement are made. In a recent speech, President Bush wrongly claimed that "this bill sets clear benchmarks for border security that must be met before other elements of this legislation are triggered." Within months of the bill's enactment, millions of illegal aliens will qualify for probationary legal ...