Welcome immigration reform to center stage

Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together and welcome immigration reform legislation to the stage. This issue has been waiting in the wings of Capitol Hill to come to the forefront. Even former president George W. Bush tried to address it, though without success. Reform attempts in 2010 also failed.

Bush's own approach looked at raising investment in border security, changing the temporary worker program, stricter immigration enforcement at businesses, requiring immigrants to learn English, and a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country without making it automatic.

This week Charles Schumer (D-NY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and John McCain (R-AZ) presented a bipartisan plan that bears the influence and names of eight different senators for addressing immigration through new legislation. It's important because it comes out before President Obama makes his own recommendations later this week, and because it shows a willingness for the two parties to work together on creating one big bill rather than approaching immigration reform through a series of smaller bills. I wish they would use that kind of logic on something with the debt ceiling.

McCain stated the obvious but continually avoided issue that, "We can’t go on forever with 11 million people living in this country in the shadows in an illegal status," in an appearance on ABC. And that's the heart of the matter that has been staring us all in the face for many years.

I'm excited to see what this amounts to. On one hand, it could lead to major partisan bickering and distrust. On the other, if the senators' ideas and Obama's ideas are close, it could be a case where Obama sees a key second term issue move forward in a bipartisan way during his presidency, which would be amazing after the last four years.

In either or another case, it will be a very public discussion of how America sees ourselves in the 21st century, outing a lot of perspectives on race, identity and assimilation.

Image courtesy of Ben Werdmuller via flickr