McCain's fighting stance

'WE DON'T have 12 million pairs of handcuffs in this country," Senator John McCain said, explaining again why the immigrants who are here illegally can't simply be deported, and why, instead, Congress needs to pass comprehensive immigration reform. McCain, an Arizona Republican, spoke about the immigration bill's chances in a meeting with Globe editors on Monday.

McCain is soaked in the immigration issue. This has become a burden on his presidential ambitions, for he is fighting an ugly nativist streak in his own party. But he has made a principled stand on an issue that, he said, goes to the heart of "what kind of nation we are."

The immigration bill, which is based on the pillars of legislation McCain co-sponsored with Edward Kennedy, was derailed in the Senate by hostile amendments earlier this month. McCain is hopeful that it can be revived, but wary of "killer amendments," such as a proposal to jail people for being in the country illegally.

"It's a matter of national security. You can't have 12 million people washing around," It's also a humanitarian issue, McCain added, since the 12 million lack legal protection and are easily exploited. Illegal workers have little recourse when denied their pay.

McCain spoke movingly of the hundreds of people who die trying to sneak across the desert. He pointed out that heat prostration is one of the worst ways to die. In Senate testimony last year, he named some of the dead. Maria Hernandez Perez, almost 2 years old, had thick brown hair and eyes the color of chocolate. Kelia Velazquez-Gonzalez, 16, carried a Bible in her backpack. John Doe, an unidentified man, died with a rosary encircling his neck and his eyes wide open.

But simply securing the southern border isn't the answer, because 40 percent of those who are now here illegally came on visas that expired.

That's why the country needs immigration reform, so it can improve border security and create more rational ways to pull illegal immigrants out of the shadows, normalizing their status so they can contribute to the economy in the full and legal light of day.

Some of the reaction McCain has encountered, fanned by talk show hosts and the Internet, has been brutal. McCain is a Vietnam war hero, yet people showed up at a fund-raiser with signs branding him a traitor. It's the kind of virulent opposition that McCain finds "so disappointing."

But virulence will not solve the problem. Congress and the president need to act, creating laws that build more legal avenues for immigrants, laws that clear up the contradictions between relying on immigrant labor but still running workplace raids, and laws that respect the tradition and future of the United States as a nation of immigrants.