GOP Congress Still Not Making Sense on Illegal Immigration

Jason Riley notes in today's Opinion Journal Political Diary (a subscription service) that the Sensenbrenner bill to be introduced today is more of the same:

Mr. Sensenbrenner has chosen to focus exclusively on border control and
interior enforcement, an approach that has been tried time and again -- Congress
has passed six such bills in the past decade -- without much to show for it in
terms of reduced illegal immigration. Among other things, the Sensenbrenner
proposal will throw more money at beefing up the Mexican border; make it a
criminal, not civil, offense to be in the country illegally; and force employers
to establish the immigration status of all hires.

The White House isn't buying, of course, and insists that any bill the President signs will have a guest worker provision (or something along those lines) that deals with the 11 million illegals already here. As I've posted before, those 11 million people can't be wished away and can't be deported. We have to recognize and normalize their presence. Trying to get them all to leave is a pipe dream.

Riley further observes:

The fundamental problem with U.S. immigration policy, said conservative
activist Grover Norquist, is that "the number of legal immigrants is set too low
by law." Frank Sharry of the National Immigration Forum, which organized
yesterday's teleconference, said an estimated 500,000 immigrants come to the
U.S. each year, yet we hand out only about 5,000 visas. The reality is that
we'll never have true immigration reform until that disparity is
addressed.

We will keep on hoping that serious people will stop sloganizing and get serious about this problem.