Bordering on reform.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Congress has no hope of reforming this nation's immigration laws until it recognizes that economic and security issues are inseparably linked. Trying to deal with either in isolation is like trying to walk a circus high wire with the balance pole extended entirely to one side. Odds are good you'll end up face down in the sawdust.

The U.S. House of Representatives last month tried the single-issue approach, approving the punitive and dangerously flawed Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. Sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., it focuses exclusively on enforcement and plays to anti-immigration sentiments that lamentably seem to be on the rise these days.

Despite its draconian measures, the bill would fail to achieve even its narrow goal of stemming the tide of illegal immigration. It would create new criminal penalties, including mandatory minimum sentences, for illegal immigrants (illegal immigration is currently a civil violation and not a felony crime). Under some circumstances, it would punish anyone - ministers, teachers, doctors, food-relief workers, lawyers - who try to assist illegals.

The bill papers over hard-core realities that tough talk and sanctions won't change. An estimated 11 million undocumented workers are already in this country. The federal government is incapable of capturing, prosecuting and imprisoning even a small percentage of them. History has shown that efforts to do so would simply drive them - and U.S. employers who desperately need their labor - even further underground.

The bill also dangles the false promise of sealing off U.S. borders by building huge fences. That resonates with immigration hard-liners in an election year. But it ignores that massive increases in spending and manpower on border enforcement over the past decade have failed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants drawn by the irresistible allure of a better life.

There are, of course, serious issues of border security that Congress can and must address. In an age of terrorism, any nation that fails to do so is taking a reckless risk. But security concerns can be addressed effectively only by addressing at the same time the U.S. economy's insatiable appetite for undocumented workers - and the existence of the millions of men, women and children who are already here illegally and have no intention of leaving.

The Senate Judiciary Committee last week began deliberations on two more sensible and realistic approaches to immigration reform.

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has introduced a bill that takes a more moderate approach to enforcement, while also addressing the labor problem. While a huge improvement over Sensenbrenner's bill, Specter's proposal is inferior to another sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Specter's bill would create a guest-worker program, a legal means by which foreign workers could obtain jobs in the United States. But Specter's proposal is flawed because it would not allow workers to ever get on a track to U.S. citizenship and includes no cap on the number of visas. It's also unrealistically inflexible, requiring undocumented workers to leave the country after six years, even if their employers still want them to remain. The invariable result would be for the millions of undocumented immigrants already in this country to burrow even further underground, where they would soon be joined by guest workers whose visas have expired.

By contrast, the McCain-Kennedy bill offers a guest-worker program that would provide a path for those already in this country to legalize their status and progress toward possible citizenship by paying a financial penalty and back taxes. It would provide a realistic number of guest-worker visas and invest resources in other countries so people can find work for living wages without coming to the United States. It would also boost border security without resorting to construction of a new Great Wall.

Regardless of whose names are attached to the final bill that passes Congress, lawmakers should make certain the final product addresses both this country's security needs and the needs of a U.S. economy that relies on the millions of undocumented workers who do its dirty work. Such comprehensive reform is the only way out of the current immigration mess and the only hope for a secure, workable and humane immigration policy.