EDITORIAL SECOND CHANCE IMMIGRATION REFORM RETURNS TO CONGRESS.

TONIGHT, when President George W. Bush addresses Americans from the Oval Office, he is expected to urge Congress to adopt immigration reform that protects our borders and builds a structure for hardworking illegal immigrants to become citizens. In so doing, he speaks for most Americans who fall somewhere in the middle of the highly polarized immigration debate.

Bush's address comes as the Senate tries to do what it couldn't in April -- come up with a bipartisan immigration reform package that fixes the broken system humanely, rationally and sensibly.

Last week, Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, announced that the Senate was expected to come up with legislation by Memorial Day. This is good news, though best to be taken with a grain of salt. In April, Senate leaders publicly announced that a bipartisan deal was all but wrapped up. It wasn't, as it turned out, and as the Senate took its spring recess it appeared immigration reform might be over before it had really begun.

Now lawmakers have a second chance. Their challenge is to come up with something that pleases both the law-and-order side of the debate, which has already been addressed in a bill adopted by the House last year, and the pro-immigration side.

It shouldn't be difficult. Border enforcement and a path to legitimacy aren't mutually exclusive ideals. Indeed, neither will work without the other. Clearly just trying to seal off the border hasn't worked, or else there wouldn't be some 12 million immigrants living illegally in the United States despite border enforcement enhancements in the past decade. And the carrot of earned citizenship must be balanced by the stick of enforcement.

Congress must put aside its differences this time and enact immigration reform. It's way past time, and the American people will no longer let the politicians get away with doing nothing.