Sunday's editorial suggests U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham as a natural leader on the next federal immigration-reform go-round.
Mixed messages seem to surround the
future of the immigration debate in Washington these days. President
Obama has indicated that despite the issue's thorny history - as well
as daunting other reforms of the financial sector, health care and
energy policy - he hoped to tackle immigration in the first year of his
presidency. Recently, however, the White House meeting intended to
launch the effort has been postponed - twice - though officials insist
that the moves were only because of scheduling issues.
If and
when that meeting does take place, however, South Carolina offers an
obvious suggestion for a participant, Sen. Lindsey Graham. His
qualifications are many: Foremost, he was among the bipartisan panel of
authors of the Bush administration's narrowly defeated attempt at
reform, an experience he describes with a glow straight out of a civics
class, as he and a handful of members of both parties started with the
basic issues and hammered out a law that addressed them all. Based
partly out of that experience and partly out of his own
solution-oriented temperament, Graham is a supporter of comprehensive
reform - simultaneously improving border security, bringing order to an
inept legal immigration system and dealing with the estimated 11
million immigrants living in the country illegally - and his approach
evinces a broad understanding of the issue's many complexities, rather
than a simple dogmatic set of demands.
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