It's mind-boggling that folks at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue could spend so much time and energy over the last five years debating immigration reform, yet still manage to steer clear of some of the touchier issues involved.
Members of Congress were content to huddle around President Bush last week as he signed a bill calling for 700 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexican border. The photo-op was intended to fool us into thinking that something has been accomplished in the area of border security.
What was accomplished was very little. Even if lawmakers had come up with all the funding to pay for the fencing -- and they didn't -- barriers only squeeze more illegal immigrants through those parts of the border that aren't fenced off. In the 1990s, crackdowns in El Paso and San Diego sent millions of illegal immigrants to crossing points in the Arizona desert.
The country would have been better served by an honest discussion of matters indispensable to any meaningful debate of immigration policy:
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