How To Salvage the Immigration Bill

Hugh Hewitt has a prescription that would ensure the bill's passage and that would cost nothing politically to either side:

To keep their hope alive, the proponents of the compromise should not leave D.C. without mandating that the entire fence will be built before any Z visa issues, that the Border Patrol will be dramatically expanded and pay and training improved before any Z visa issues, by detailing the expanision in the staffs of the DHS and FBI charged with processing and investigating the Z visa applicants and by declining to extend to any illegal alien from "countries of special interest" any status whatsoever. The national security arguments against the bill are the most powerful, and the Senate is simply not responding in a serious way to those arguments and thus losing the opportunity to salvage the bill.

It remains to be seen if any of this will happen. I am not optimistic. My guess is, the bill will pass narrowly, even if not amended, and the 2008 issue will be how to amend the flawed law.