23.2.06

More on the immigration debates

The New York Daily News has got another strong piece on the immigration bill.

From the piece:

Tancredo is mad. And his rage is truly ecumenical. He is equally angry at the Catholic, Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran, United Methodist and Presbyterian churches, and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. For the Colorado politician, these religious groups, by trying to inject desperately needed compassion and common sense into the immigration debate, are putting national security at risk.

But the fact is that for an effective immigration policy to be possible, the shameless use of national security as an excuse to carry on anti-immigrant agendas must stop.
"Our policies should have compassion for those who come here to escape the crushing indignity of extreme poverty or persecution," Rabbi Daniel Brenner has said. They should also recognize that illegal immigration is a function of supply and demand in the U.S. labor market. And that as such, no law that limits itself to the enforcement of greater border controls will ever solve the problem. McCain is one of the sponsors of the McCain-Kennedy Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005, now before Congress, that is supported by the religious groups that make Tancredo angry.