From The Seattle Times
By Froma Harrop

Immigration is said to be a divisive issue, but it really isn’t. Large majorities of Americans favor legal immigration, and large majorities oppose illegal immigration.

But the failure to control the process has created a tiger that periodically pounces onto the national stage. John McCain and Barack Obama both have their positions on immigration — many similar, some different. And as always with this issue, the details are everything.

John McCain is forever linked to the sweeping immigration reform that went down in flames last year and which Obama also backed. It promised to beef up enforcement of immigration law and put 12 million illegal aliens on the path to citizenship. The fatal flaw in the “grand bargain” was not its two-pronged approach, but its inability to convince voters that the enforcement part would be respected. (They were right to be skeptical.)

McCain’s move to an enforcement-first stance thus better fits popular sentiment. A recent Rasmussen Reports poll finds American voters believing, by a 63 percent to 28 percent margin, that it’s more important to control the border than resolve the status of people here illegally.

Obama doesn’t back “enforcement first.” Like McCain, he does endorse two essential ingredients for applying the law: an electronic system to verify a job applicant’s right to work in the United States and stiffer penalties on employers who hire illegals. But our history with immigration reform is littered with last-minute sabotaging of enforcement mechanisms. Obama’s past support for giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens does not build faith in his desire to seriously apply the law.

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