Rethinking immigration

BUILD A fence. That's one low-tech, low-imagination idea being batted around Congress. It's as if addressing illegal immigration is like keeping rabbits out of lettuce patches.

Congress has to do better, coming up with a sweeping plan.

Illegal immigration is often a global story about how people pursue wealth, going from poor countries to richer ones in search of jobs that sometimes only pay a fraction of what middle-class Americans call a salary.

Success and tragedy pave the road from Mexico to the United States. Money can buy a reliable smuggler and false identification documents. The poor face the dangers of walking through the desert, sometimes with children. Others hitch rides on trains and in horrific cases fall off and have limbs severed. People scramble through rivers. Women are raped. It's a human rights disaster.

Roughly half of Mexico's population lives in poverty. So for many it's common sense to find work in the United States, even illegally. In Guatemala, where poverty is even worse, people leave to find better options in Mexico.

For years, the United States has simultaneously raged about and ignored the issue. Politicians lividly denounce illegal immigration as a flagrant flouting of US law. But on Monday, the Washington Post reported that the federal government has been winking at the problem: prosecuting 182 employers for hiring illegal immigrants in 1999, and three in 2004.

What to do? Building a bigger fence on the southern US border can't possibly stem the tides of global poverty and human hope. And fences do nothing to stop those who come here on temporary visas and don't leave.

The House's enforcement-only bill would essentially be little more than a fence with a sign saying, ``Stay home."

The Senate would more wisely mix enforcement and a legalization program for workers. Employers would have a fast way to check a job applicant's legal status. And employers who did hire illegally would be more severely punished -- a key step toward shutting down the ample and alluring supply of jobs for illegal immigrants. The Senate bill would also authorize funding to hire 11,000 new investigators to focus partly on worksite enforcement.

A conference committee has to hammer out the differences. But the House is foot- dragging, calling for more hearings.

While reform of United States law is vital, real progress also means that the United States has to work more closely with other countries to increase global prosperity. Poor countries need investments that create job opportunities and keep their residents at home. Any member of Congress who isn't calling for sweeping global reform isn't serious about solving the immigration problem.