Last Sunday, during a press conference to announce the immigration reform initiative called the Colorado Compact, American Jewish Committee President Donald Yale described AJC’s role in drafting and gathering support for the compact as an effort “to foster a more rational and collaborative approach to permanently repair our nation’s broken immigration system.”
There were several key words in Yale’s quote.
“Rational” and “collaborative” are two of them.
We assume he meant rational in the sense of a reasoned, non-ideological, non-emotional and non-rhetorical approach to immigration reform, as opposed to many other proposed solutions, from both the right and left, that are quite the opposite of the ideals the compact seems to be striving for.
The “collaborative” connection is equally obvious. The compact already has an unusually diverse group of signatures including those of US Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, Gov. John Hickenlooper, Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, former Sen. Hank Brown, Cong. Ed Perlmutter and former Denver Mayor Federico Peña, and an even more bipartisan selection of immigration-concerned organizations.
“Broken” is another key word.
America’s current immigration system is clearly broken. Aside from a few scattershot and insufficient efforts here and there, the US government approach has ranged from what appears to be deliberate inertia to what can only be termed political timidity.
Considering the complexity, contradictions and multifaceted agenda inherent in immigration reform, we cannot say whether the Colorado Compact — or its similar predecessor in Utah — is correct or comprehensive in addressing the salient dimensions of the issue.
Governing principles around which it is centered, however — leaving immigration policy to federal, not state, authority; respect for individual freedoms and free market economics; protecting national security; family unification; maximizing law enforcement effectiveness; providing law-abiding and tax-paying illegal immigrants with a “common sense path forward” — seem like a solid basis for going forward.
Whether the Colorado Compact provides a prototype blueprint for congressional legislation, or whether it merely serves as a prod for other policies and political action, it bears all the marks of a timely, logical and thoughtful start.
We give a nod to the American Jewish Committee for participating in the creation of this initiative and for providing it with a Jewish voice.
Although very few Jews today are among the illegal, or potentially illegal, immigrants this compact is meant to address, Jewish history has plenty of examples of how terrible it can be when fear or hatred govern a nation’s approach to immigration.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
