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Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.11.2005
Arizona Daily Star: How confident are you that we're going to get some sort of agreement on immigration reform?
Kyl: It depends on the good will of the senators and representatives and the degree to which politics plays a part. If we can keep it from being too political and can work together, I think there's a good chance that we can get a combination of enforcement and temporary work … program.
Star: What would you consider political?
Kyl: Well, I would usually prefer to approach an issue, get the facts, debate the issues and get a substantive resolution of it, uninfluenced by extraneous political considerations.
Immigration is a very hard issue to deal with in that way. It lends itself to demagoguery. Peoples' views are already formed and there are emotional constituent views that are hard for political people to deal with in a substantive way.
With an election coming up, people could play politics with the issue, and that will make it harder to resolve.
Star: What I've read about your bill is that it will require people who are now here in the U.S. to return to their home country and then reapply.
Kyl: They have five years to do that, yes.
Star: The estimates for illegal immigrants here now is somewhere between 11 and 14 million. How are you going to get them back to their country?
Kyl: First of all, we are faced with a situation that has been created over time and will not be easy to deal with. I don't think anybody can express with great confidence that any particular solution is a perfect solution.
We tried to design a program that was consistent with polling data, consistent with indications from the Mexican government about how it would like to see a temporary worker program work, and what — from practical experience from a senator from Arizona and senator from Texas — felt to be a practical way to resolve the situation that was fair.
We start from the premise, based on polling data, that a majority of illegal immigrants from Mexico would return home if they have five years to stay in the United States. … The Mexican position of "circularity": They would like to have people come to the United States, work for a period of time, make money, learn foreign skills and then return.
Then the third element is the reason a program — to work — needs to be temporary is that economic conditions change. We're in a high employment situation. But inevitably in Arizona there will be an economic downturn … and there will be high unemployment.
The point of having foreign workers to do jobs that American's won't do, is to have them here when that work needs to be done, but not have them here on a permanent basis if there are no jobs for them.
The final consideration is that implementing an effective employer-employee verification system, revising the Social Security system to clean up the bad Social Security numbers, and ensuring employer verification will take time.
And you wouldn't possibly be able to accommodate everybody leaving the country all at once anyway.
Star: Employers shouldn't be hiring illegal immigrants now, in reality. What makes you think that will change?
Kyl: Make it easier for them to use a legal system. The legal system today is very hard to use, particularly in agriculture. A temporary worker system has got to be easy to use. It has to be quick; it can't cost a lot; it has to be a situation that you don't get sued if you use it.
What our bill envisions is a combination of things, primarily a new Social Security card and a driver's license, issued under the Real ID Act. We have 50 million bad Social Security numbers in the country today.
I met an employer in Yuma who said he has some employees working under number 000-00-0000. That sounds impossible, but there are like 10,000 people working under that number.
Everybody knows the system is broken. It will take — and it's not too expensive, incidentally — a little over a year to clean the system of all of those bad Social Security numbers, issue new cards with new numbers and have IRS notify Social Security when someone dies so the number can't be used.
Star: There is wide disagreement, though, about the various immigration bills. Do you think that the differences can be bridged?
Kyl: They'll have to be, one way or the other. They need to be. For example, John McCain and I have somewhat different approaches. We agree that we have to try to resolve this issue as soon as we can, early next year, and that it needs to be a comprehensive bill that deals both with enforcement at the border, at the interior, at the workplace; with a temporary worker component; with the people who are here illegally already. It's not going to be easy, but we agree that we've got to try to do it.
Star: When the president was here on Monday (Nov. 28) he spoke forcefully on enforcement. But he then came in, as you know, and talked about a guest worker program. Did he endorse either your bill or Sen. McCain's? And, if not, when will he come out and say more specifically what he would like to see in an immigration comprehensive reform bill?
Kyl: Remember that he's talking principles and concepts … but still not legislative language in a bill. My guess is the administration will continue to talk in those terms, ever refining and getting more specific as time goes on, probably not endorsing any specific bill.
There would not be any point in that, since all of our bills are going to be seeing changes. The net result is going to be some kind of a conglomeration of all of these different ideas, including the president's ideas.
Star: What role do you see state government play in immigration?
Kyl: The primary responsibility for controlling the border is the federal government's. And, I would add to that, enforcing immigration law. There are several things the states can do.
For example, the criminal justice system is overwhelmed with illegal immigrants and illegal immigration cases.
Counties are political subdivisions of the state, and the state needs to ensure that the counties' criminal justice systems can operate properly.
Now, the federal government is creating part of the problem by not stopping illegal immigration. To ensure that there are plenty of judges, courtrooms, bailiffs, public defenders, sheriff's deputies, jail facilities, and all of the other things that are part of the criminal justice system is part of the state's responsibility.
Secondly, when local officers — local police departments and to some extent state officers — come across illegal immigrants, there needs to be much better cooperation.
This is mostly the federal officials' fault … When a van of 18 illegal immigrants is taken into custody by Tucson PD, or DPS, or Phoenix PD, they (law enforcement) need to be able to call ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) or Border Patrol and say, "Come get these folks."
Star: What is the principal difference between your bill and the McCain-Kennedy-Kolbe-Flake bill?
Kyl: The chief difference has to do with the way that temporary workers are dealt with in the immigration context and how the illegal immigrants are "regularized" under the McCain-Kennedy approach as opposed to our approach. In their approach, it is a permanent legal residency that is obtained after time.
Star: Given your best predictive powers, do you think measures such as recommending a bill to Congress to put up a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border or other measures that will put soldiers on the border will be in a new immigration bill?
Kyl: Parts will be. For example, (Rep.) Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) came to me back in 1995 and said we need a triple fence between the ocean and the Otay Mesa (in the San Diego-Tijuana region). I think it's about a 26-mile stretch in there. I went to (Sen.) Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). She and I co-sponsored the amendment in the Senate. That was in my first year in the Senate that we got our amendment. I sat down with it and I said we need to double the number of Border Patrol agents. She agreed. Our amendment prevailed on that. We did a lot in that 1995-96 time frame and the fence was part of that.
You know how many people have gotten across that fence since it was built? Not one.
Star: How many of those people went around it and — not to be argumentative — but if it does work, then why don't you put in your proposal a fence throughout the whole border?
Kyl: Allow me to continue. The point is (building a fence) in an urban area where … 100 people are rushing the port of entry because there were too many to handle. It's exactly why you have fencing of a sort in Douglas, Nogales and in the Yuma area. In the urban areas, fencing like that can be a tremendous asset for the Border Patrol.
Their (Border Patrol's) ideal is effective fencing in the urban areas out as far as you can afford to do it. Then, a concentration of cameras, lights and then, further out, sensors, complemented by aerial surveillance … plus ATVs, cars, even horseback. Fencing is very effective in an urban environment. Can you afford to build a fence the entire 2,300 miles of the border? Probably not. And in fact, in some areas it just wouldn't make as much sense.
But my point is that with the combination of all of those things together, the Border Patrol believes it will enable them to get control.
Star: I'd like to change topics. What is your feeling about the situation in Iraq? Do you think we should continue to be there? How do you feel about the strategy that the president talks about?
Kyl: I believe that the president is correct that we have to continue to try to train the Iraqi police and military and until they are able to handle the security of their country.
We're going to have to remain there. You have to be able to provide the security that enables the Iraqi government to stand up and take care of itself and, in effect, to beat the terrorists who wish to be able to prevent that result. The consequences of leaving earlier than that are unthinkable.
Star: How confident are you that the president's optimism is warranted? Or do you believe that some other reports that are much more pessimistic?
Kyl: I was in Iraq just about a year ago. I spent Thanksgiving in Baghdad with the troops last year and then I went to Afghanistan. I saw the training of the Iraqi troops and the results of some of that training, and talked to our military commanders. The difference between then and now is dramatic. … They are achieving substantial results.
Star: In the strategy the president talks about, he has short-term goals, long-term goals, et cetera. There is no specific time period. How do you feel about that? Are you willing to support this indefinitely, or do you have some picture of where this is going and in what time frame?
Kyl: Let me answer the question in two ways. In 1943, if we had told President Roosevelt that we want a timetable and we want this done by April 1944, what would have happened if we had suddenly quit in April of 1944?
As President Bush said in the very beginning and repeated over and over: This will be a very difficult and long endeavor.
I think what the president was saying is that we will see it through. The consequences of not doing so are unthinkable. You don't set timetables to give the enemy a target to wait for until you're gone, and then they come in and massacre everybody that's been cooperative with you and the Iraqi government.
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