Charles Krauthammer, who can't be accused of being an "amnesty" squish, writes in today's Washington Post that a final bill that includes rigorous border enforcement and a path to citizenship for those already here "would make sense."
I am not against legalization. Admittedly, legalization is desperately unfair to the further millions who have been waiting in line at U.S. consulates around the world. By itself, it would only encourage future illegal immigration. But if coupled with a program that closes down the border, it would make sense. It would resolve the problem once and for all.
And yesterday on Fox, he argued:
Essentially all of that millions with the few exceptions are going to end up citizens, and I'm not against that if you enforce security, if you've got a fence that stops the new illegals.
Similarly, George Will argued in a Post column that we should vigorously enforce border controls. But he also warned that the U.S. should avoid the mistakes many European nations have made in permanently marginalizing an immigrant underclass. He wrote:
As the debate about immigration policy boils, augmented border control must not be the entire agenda, lest other thorny problems be ignored.... Conservatives should favor reducing illegality by putting illegal immigrants on a path out of society's crevices and into citizenship by paying fines and back taxes and learning English. Faux conservatives absurdly call this price tag on legal status "amnesty." Actually, it would prevent the emergence of a sullen, simmering subculture of the permanently marginalized, akin to the Arab ghettos in France.
One thing's for sure, the president has a lot riding on getting an immigration bill on his desk and, in the famous words of Gene Kranz, "failure is not an option."