I know, I get it - you're sick of my articles. Boo-ring!

I've got the perfect solution: My equivalent of the Red Eye in Chi-town or Express in Washington...watered down versions of the Tribune and the Post, respectively, aimed at attracting younger readers.

I give you six-year-old Dickie. Every day, he'll give you the gist.

(In some cases, the prose will be better than what was actually published.)

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"Immegrats is good.

Immegrats is bad.

We need the immegrats. The immegrats work hawd. Daddy says they put salad on the table. Daddy say they built our house. Daddy says they built the pool. I sim in the pool. Daddy drinks beer in the pool.

Immegrats are mean. They take my mommy and daddy and mine's medicine at the hopistal. That's what Daddy says.

The tewwowists hide in the immigrats becawse nobody nose who the immigrats is.

We needs the immigrats to say who they are. So we can get the tewwowists. But the immigwats don't want to say who they are. They don't want to go back to Mexico. They like it here. They have babies.

Mommy wants to give the immegrats green cars. She says they will say who they are and we will be safe.

Daddy hates Mommy when Mommy says this. They yell. It makes me cry."

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Senators advocate immigration

5/21/05
By DICKIE CRONKITE
NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT

Democrats, Republicans assert link between porous borders, national security

WASHINGTON -- The partisan divide in the U.S. Senate may seem wider than ever thanks to the great filibuster debate, but members from both sides of the aisle agree that the nation's immigration and border security measures required fundamental reform.

"Our nation's immigration and border security system is badly broken," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., chairman of the subcommittee on immigration, at a hearing this week. "It leaves our borders unprotected, threatens our national security, and makes a mockery of the rule of law."


Democrats agreed. "In the last 10 years, the government has spent more than $20 billion to enforce our immigration laws," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. "We've tripled the number of border patrol agents, improved surveillance technology . . . yet illegal immigration continues."


How to arrive at the needed reform was another question entirely, however.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Mr. Kennedy have introduced a bipartisan bill that would allow foreign workers a six-year stay, provided they clear all necessary security checks and show proof of a job waiting for them on the U.S. side of the border. Once their visa expires, the workers could apply for a green card.

The bill resembles the "AgJOBS" legislation, also sponsored by Mr. Kennedy, that was narrowly in the Senate several weeks ago. AgJOBS specifically dealt with undocumented workers in the agriculture sector, while the McCain-Kennedy measure is more sweeping in scope.

"That's a 'work and stay' [plan]," said Don Stewart, spokesman for Mr. Cornyn.

By summer, Mr. Cornyn and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz, are expected to introduce an alternative to the McCain-Kennedy bill. Instead of offering an opportunity to obtain permanent legal resident status, Mr. Stewart said the plan would likely include some type of "work and return" program, with no chance for a green card.

Such a plan would resemble the president's broad proposal for a guest-worker program.

At the hearing, senators considered whether the opportunity to obtain a permanent stay would benefit national security -- encouraging potentially millions of immigrants to "come out of the shadows" and be documented -- or if it would encourage more illegals to cross the border, having seen others rewarded for violating the law.

Margaret Stock, an associate law professor at West Point, argued the first position. "A program that includes no real possibility . . . to earn permanent resident status will not generate full participation," she told the senators. "People will simply choose not to participate, or take the risk and go back into the shadows."


She said it was unrealistic to assume families with illegal immigrants would consent to the separation involved in a work and return program, and claimed it would hurt national security in the long run.

The federal government estimates that there are 8 million illegal immigrants here now. Other estimates range as high as 15 million.

Asa Hutchinson, former undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security, petitioned for increased funding towards border security technologies, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, and added personnel. President Bush's proposed 2005 budget provides $64 million for such initiatives, and a recently passed war supplemental bill adds an additional $58 million.

"When, and only when these security measures are established, then is it appropriate to begin a conversation on providing a temporary legal status to the 8 million workers already in this country," Mr. Hutchinson said.

Disagreeing with Ms. Stock, he added, "Any legal status should be a temporary work permit with a point of return to the alien's home country."


Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., expressed security concerns over "Other than Mexican" illegal immigrants, or "OTMs" -- immigrants that cannot be readily sent back to their home countries.

According to Manny Van Pelt, spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, there are currently 465,000 fugitives who either never showed up for hearings after being released, or never caught the flight home. "They're our highest priority," Mr. Van Pelt said, adding that the agency has 18 fugitive operations units that do nothing but track those immigrants down.

He maintained it's not a question of "if," but "when" they are caught, in part due to the National Crimes Information Center, a centralized database that police and other agencies use to run background checks.

Of those 465,000 fugitives, as many as 85,000 have been found to have a criminal record, Mr. Van Pelt said.

Ms. Feinstein said that number was unacceptable and Mr. Hutchinson agreed. He asserted that additional detention space is the key to reducing that number.

"If we were to lock up every single illegal alien in the United States, you would have to build jails all the way across from the Pacific to Atlantic," Mr. Van Pelt said. "Imagine another million people detained in the U.S. -- it's just not possible."


Dickie Cronkite writes for Medill News Service from Washington, D.C. E-mail him at *******@newspress.com.