President Bush is on the right track with his proposal to reform the country’s broken immigration system.

Under a plan introduced Wednesday, the president would create a new guest worker program that makes it easier for noncitizens to work in the United States and grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens currently in the country. The president would also increase the number of green cards available and allow documented workers to freely travel between their home countries and the United States.

The idea is to move illegal immigrant workers into the system, where they would have the same protection of law and responsibilities as other workers. That’s a long-overdue and important reform.

Today, as many as 14 million undocumented, illegal aliens live and work in the United States. Often, they do manual and menial labor for low wages and no benefits. Their illegal status leaves them at the mercy of employers, who can take advantage of the situation to keep salaries low and cheat workers out of their pay.

Critics of the plan say it would reward criminal activity by granting legal status to illegal immigrants. We take that charge seriously, but believe that it is impossible to address the problem of illegal immigration without accounting for those people who are already in the country.

Bush’s plan would also require foreign workers to show that the jobs they are filling could not be filled with American workers. That’s a good requirement, as long as it is enforced.

While this is a good start, immigration reform also needs tougher sanctions for those who would cheat the system and the employers who profit from hiring illegal workers.

Along with legal status, immigrants would have more recourse against abuse. Wages would necessarily go up for immigrants, which means some unscrupulous companies would have motivation to subvert the system. Criminal charges, accompanied by jail time, should await employers convicted of knowingly hiring undocumented workers. That does not relieve the individual responsibility of the workers, but it does recognize the enablers in an exploitative system.

While Bush’s plan is, at least in part, an election-year ploy to appeal to Hispanic voters, that doesn’t detract from the good that could be done by bringing a large piece of the economy aboveground.

There are many details of the plan that the president has left to Congress. The length of time a worker could legally stay, the number of new green cards that would be issued and the cost for participating in the program have all been left to others. But it’s still a good, moderate start.

With this move, a segment of hard workers who have been contributing to the U.S. economy for decades would receive a chance at a more respectful life.

It’s now up to Congress to make sure this is more than political theater, but an honest attempt at real reform.
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