Legalizing Aliens the Hard Way, Or the Easy Way

THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT website is up and running fairly well now, so Obama's opponents have less to argue about on that topic. The focus shifts to immigration reform, which is the subject of this week's publiclty campaign by Obama. Like all questions, the immigration question has moved inexorably in a mildly liberal direction in the past few years. You no longer hear anyone seriously suggesting that all twelve million illegal immigrants now in the United States be deported. The question now has boiled down to whether that large illegal population shall be allowed to become naturalized citizens through a relatively easy to navigate process, or whether they should be subjected to numerous obstacles, to weed out the less determined folks. But the question of mass deportations has been decided; there will be none. Compassion and common sense have prevailed over dogmatic ideological inflexibility. Sometimes, you have to adjust the system to deal with circumstances. Conservative republicans, having finally abandoned their dreams of a nation free of illegal immigrants, favor the more rigorous approach to naturalization, as you might expect. Liberal democarats, in Congress and around the country, tend to favor a more lenient approach; get 'em documented, and get 'em legal. Common sense would seem to dictate that the less rigorous and demanding requirements for American citizenship are determined to be, the less imposition, expense, and trouble for the American people and government to administer the process. Little wonder that a high percentage of hispanic voters vote for democtrats in local and national elections. Many of the "aliens" in America have friends and relatives who are legalized voters. We'll see some needlessly complicated compromise from Congress, if we see anything at all.