Path to citizenship politics

Washington Times:

Sen. John McCain and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani stood alone among the Republican presidential candidates in last night's Spanish-language debate in calling for some illegal aliens to be granted a path to citizenship.

"None of us have been perfect — all of us have been struggling with this for a long time," Mr. Giuliani said, summing up the flip-flops most of the top-tier Republican candidates have made on the issue during the presidential campaign.

He and Mr. McCain said that after the border is secure, the illegal alien population can be addressed, with some being allowed to stay.

"The people who want to come forward should be allowed to come forward," Mr. Giuliani said.

But the other candidates said that doing so would be a disservice to those waiting in line at home and called for illegal aliens to go home and re-enter the U.S. legally.

"We have to enforce our borders and we have to uphold our law," said former Sen. Fred Thompson, while former Gov. Mitt Romney called for illegal aliens "to get in line with everybody else, but there should be no special pathway."

...

Thompson has the better argument on this point. There already exists a path to citizenship and those who come here illegally should not get a better deal than those who follow the rules. It is fundamentally unfair to give them a better deal and it also provides an incentive to come here illegally if we give a different path to citizenship that that which already available. The only way to get control of the borders is to take away all the incentives to come here illegally and a path to citizenship incentive may be the biggest. There has to be a consequence for coming here illegally if we are going to get control of the immigration process.

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