The following editorial appeared in The Miami Herald on Tuesday, Oct. 31:

With President Bush’s signing of the Secure Fence Act, two years of work on immigration reform can be compared to a cheesy T-shirt slogan: Our members of Congress went to Washington and all they brought us was a stupid fence that won’t be built.

And that’s the good news. The bill does nothing to fix the basic problem: that this country sorely lacks sufficient legal channels to satisfy the U.S. economy’s demand for immigrant labor. Meanwhile, the fence law has alienated Mexico – the country whose cooperation we need most to control the southern border.

While the bill authorizes a 700-mile border fence, the available funding is nowhere near enough to stretch that far. That’s fine by us. What is really needed are comprehensive reforms that bolster national security while providing the legal immigrant workers we need.


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