Should They Stay Or Should They Go?

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The country has welcomed so-called guest workers into the U.S. since World War I, during which tens of thousands of Mexican workers were allowed in temporarily to help on the nation's farms. The idea is that when harvest time is over, they return home.

Except that often they don't, which is why the House rejected President Bush's proposed guest-worker plan when it passed its immigration bill in December. But House leadership strategists say privately they believe this time, with a strong lobbying effort by business and some additional pressure by Bush, they may find the votes they need to support a guest-worker program in a conference bill. The Senate Judiciary bill would allow at least 87,000 guest workers a year to apply for permanent residency, a step toward citizenship--which may be more than House Republicans can swallow. But even if guests are explicitly temporary, there is always a great risk that they will nonetheless stick around after their papers expire.

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And what of the 11 million illegal immigrants who are in the U.S.? Will they get a chance at the biggest prize--citizenship? No word in the immigration debate is more freighted than amnesty. Everyone who wants to reform immigration policy to legitimize a significant portion of those who are here illegally is quick to insist that what they are talking about is "earned citizenship." The bill that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, for example, created a path to citizenship that would take 11 years and require that immigrants hold jobs, demonstrate proficiency in English, pass criminal-background checks and pay fines and back taxes. "This is an earned path," stressed South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the Republicans who voted for it. "Some will make it, and some will not. The only thing to me that is off the table is inaction."

It's easy to understand why the idea of an amnesty would spark such a negative reaction. The country tried one with the 1986 law. Nearly 3 million people took advantage of it, and the amnesty was followed by an explosion in illegal immigration. But not to offer some process by which illegal immigrants gain legitimacy is to keep them permanently underground. "To me, it goes to the core of your view and recognition of human dignity for everybody," says Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, another of the Judiciary Committee Republicans who voted for legalization. But to do it is to reward lawbreaking, says Texas Senator John Cornyn, who voted against the bill. "It will encourage further disrespect for our laws and will undercut our efforts to shore up homeland security."

So which way is really in the American tradition? In some respects, that's beside the point, because the immigration debate, like immigration itself, is a bet on the future. "Immigrants don't come to America to change America," says Florida Senator Martinez, who arrived from Cuba when he was 15. "Immigrants come to America to be changed by America." But either way, they come.