The Department of Homeland Security appointed a new public advocate to handle questions and complaints about the agency’s immigration policies.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said Monday that senior ICE adviser Andrew Lorenzen-Strait will lead the effort.

Lorenzen-Strait’s appointment was to be announced Tuesday.

Morton said the position was created to ensure that the public and immigration advocates understand various changes being made within the department and what the changes mean for those immigrants being jailed by immigration authorities or those facing deportation. Lorenzen-Strait will also address concerns about ICE enforcement involving U.S. citizens.

“We have undertaken a significant number of reforms from a policy perspective and we want to make sure they are evenly understood in the public and advocacy communities,” Morton said.

Lorenzen-Strait, a lawyer who has been an ICE adviser since 2008, said he sees his new job as being the facilitator “of a two-way dialogue.” He will report to Gary Mead, ICE’s head of enforcement and removal operations.

In recent months DHS has announced changes in the way authorities determine which undoucmented immigrants are deported.

In June, Morton outlined when agents and immigration prosecutors could use discretion in opting not to pursue a deportation case. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano went a step further in August when she announced the review of roughly 300,000 pending deportation cases as part of the department’s efforts to focus its resources on deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records, repeat immigration law offenders and those who pose a public safety or national security threat.

After a review of cases pending in Baltimore and Denver, DHS officials earlier this year recommended closing more than 1,600 deportation cases involving non-criminal undocumented immigrants. The review is ongoing in other parts of the country.

Morton said Lorenzen-Strait will be responsible for helping the public understand the prosecutorial discretion policy and other changes as well as addressing complaints about the changes.

Democrats face a politically tricky choice over whether to pursue a compromise with Republicans on immigration reform that was recently floated by Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.

The Republican presidential contenders are willing to grant illegal immigrants legal status if they came to the country at a young age and served in the military.

It’s a tough election-year call for Democrats for several reasons.

Immigration reform has been a winning issue for them as staunch GOP opposition has driven Hispanic voters to support Democratic candidates in recent cycles.

Hispanic voters helped Democrats win tough Senate races in Colorado and Nevada in 2010. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) bolstered his standing among Hispanic voters by claiming immigration reform as one of his highest priorities.

During his State of the Union address last month, President Obama called for Congress to resurrect the DREAM Act, even though lawmakers say there is virtually no chance of it passing the GOP-controlled House.

Striking a compromise would allow Republicans to earn some points with Hispanic voters and lessen pressure on Republican lawmakers to support more comprehensive immigration reform.

Walking away from possible common ground, however, could leave Democrats open to criticism that they missed a chance to make incremental progress.

At a debate in Florida last week, Romney and Gingrich said they could support a scaled-down version of the DREAM Act.

The DREAM Act, which Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to pass the last several years, would grant legal status to illegal immigrants who crossed the border at a young age if they meet certain conditions. The legislation, which has previously gotten a few Republican votes, has been criticized by many in the GOP for granting “amnesty.”

Romney and Gingrich, the two front-runners for the 2012 GOP nomination, say they could support it only if it were scaled back.

“I wouldn’t sign the DREAM Act as it currently exists, but I would sign the DREAM Act if it were focused on military service,” Romney said.

That clarification came soon after Romney had vowed to veto the DREAM Act, triggering criticism from prominent Hispanic Republicans. During the presidential debates, Romney hammered Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) for signing into law a version of the DREAM Act in the Lone Star State.

Gingrich and Romney would lop off part of the DREAM Act that would grant legal residency to alien minors who came to the country at age 15 or younger, live in the country for at least five years and complete at least two years of higher education.

Some Democrats are unsure whether they will embrace the Gingrich-Romney approach.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act.

“If you are willing to accept that military service is the kind of bona fide that credentials a young person to take advantage of college benefits, I’d want to explore what other kinds of service might also qualify with them before I wrote off drawing the line there. I’ll do a bit more exploring but it’s a good start,” Whitehouse added.

Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), a leading Democratic voice on immigration reform, said he would prefer to pass the DREAM Act in its entirety, but would not rule out a compromise.

“My belief is we should try to pass the whole DREAM Act. As for what compromise might come about, that’s down the road,” said Schumer.

Other Democrats reject out of hand the GOP proposal to rewrite the DREAM Act.

“I don’t support that,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the lead Senate sponsor of the DREAM Act. “That will literally mean that those who came to this country at an innocent situation early in life have only one way to become legal, and that’s to join the military. I want men and women to join the military out of a sense of duty and patriotism, rather than to feel they are desperate and have no other place to turn.”

The day after the GOP presidential debate in Tampa, Fla., Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.) introduced the Adjusted Residency for Military Service (ARMS) Act, which followed the outlines set by Romney and Gingrich.

Rivera said he first talked to Gingrich about the bill in November.

He said Democrats should support it because it’s the only immigration reform proposal that has a chance of passing Congress this year.

“Any Democrats who take a reasonable approach to immigration reform understand the realities we’re facing in the 112th Congress. If we want to do something to help young people in this Congress, this is the only option,” said Rivera, who has endorsed Gingrich.

“If Democrats want to take an all-or-nothing approach, there will be nothing. If someone is willing to die for America, we can give them a chance,” he said.

“I’m comfortable with that [the Romney-Gingrich position] and I think most Republicans are,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who backs Romney and is seen as a possible running mate.

Even if the Romney-Gingrich compromise passed the Senate, it’s unlikely it would pass the House because most Republicans in the lower chamber say the top priority on immigration is securing the borders.

Politically, the scenario of House GOP leaders breaking from their White House nominee would play well for Democrats just months before the election.

Meanwhile, immigration experts say Pentagon officials have tightened their application processes in recent years.

Gregory Chen, the director of advocacy at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), said illegal immigrants are currently prohibited from serving in the military.

He said military recruiters now carefully check Social Security numbers to make sure inductees are legal residents, a precaution not always taken in the past.

Chen noted that non-citizens receive expedited processing for citizenship if they serve in the military. He also noted that legal residents can win citizenship posthumously if killed in the line of duty, which can benefit surviving relatives.

“AILA would generally support providing a path to legal status, but this bill is very small in the sense that it will enable very few people to qualify,” he said of Rivera’s legislation.

Chen estimated that the Gingrich-Romney plan would only affect 1,000 people a year.

Rivera disputed that assertion.

“It’s impossible to estimate,” he said.

There’s no doubt immigration will be one of the critical political and social issues of 2012. While substantial progress has been made on one significant concern — improving border security — overall the system remains broken. Whether America is successful in reforming it depends on the tone of the discussion in this country, guidance from the courts, and the prevailing political winds.

So far, when it comes to immigration and efforts by some states to impose a solution absent federal reform, we have seen a combination of initiatives — unevenly applied at best, constitutionally untenable at worst — and a national discussion that has wavered between constructive debate and hateful, ugly stereotypes.

In short, the immigration reform debate has engendered a mix of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Let’s start with The Good: Both former President George W. Bush and President Obama have supported proposals for comprehensive immigration reform. In a 2006 speech, President Bush stated that “an immigration reform bill needs to be comprehensive, because all of the elements of this problem must be addressed together — or none of them will be solved at all.” Five years later, in his May 2011 address in El Paso, Texas, President Obama echoed those remarks, asserting that “what we really need to do is keep up the fight to pass genuine, comprehensive reform.”

This past August, in the absence of a legislative progress toward immigration reform, President Obama on his own took some small positive steps, using his executive authority to ease some of the hardships the broken immigration system is causing, especially for youth and families. For example, the federal Department of Homeland Security now exercises prosecutorial discretion to target the agency’s enforcement resources on those who pose the greatest risk to the public. However, the administration’s actions do not obviate the need for comprehensive legislative reform.

There’s also good news in the broad public support for meaningful reform. Recent studies indicate significant public support for reforms including streamlining the process for employers to hire foreign-born workers to perform seasonal work.

In an October 2011 national poll conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, we found that a strong majority of Americans — 60 percent — were in favor of a six-year path to citizenship if the children had arrived here before they were 15 years old and had lived here at least five years. And 65 percent of Americans said that children of illegal immigrants who were born in the U.S. should be considered American citizens.

Sixty percent of those polled indicated they would oppose any change in the 14th Amendment that would remove automatic citizenship for anyone born in the U.S.

Now comes The Bad: Many states across the nation — including Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina — have moved to pass anti-immigrant laws that are on shaky ground constitutionally and of questionable efficacy. Some courts are already reacting to these anti-immigrant laws by striking down the most controversial of the provisions.

The Supreme Court this term will rule on the legality of Arizona’s SB 1070, the state law which seeks to push undocumented immigrants out by way of punitive measures. Passed in 2010, the Arizona law was the first in a wave of harsh state immigration laws that are having detrimental consequences on industry, citizens, and documented and undocumented immigrants alike.

In many of the states that have passed SB 1070 “copycat laws,” local police are authorized to check an individual’s immigration status during a traffic or any other lawful stop; during an investigation of petty offenses like open container laws, underage drinking, jay-walking, or smoking in an elevator; even during domestic violence incidents where often both the perpetrator and victim are initially arrested. For example, should an undocumented victim of domestic violence call 9-1-1 to report an incident in one of these states, that victim could be deported as a result of the police investigation.

And, of course, there’s The Ugly: The stereotypes, hateful rhetoric, and dehumanizing language about Hispanics, Latinos or immigrants we’ve seen surrounding the issue, especially during the past year, threaten to derail meaningful reform and taint the national discussion.

Regardless of how Americans feel about immigration, appeals to prejudice and bigotry simply have no place in a civil debate.

The climate of bias and hostility toward immigrants that pervades the immigration debate hurts our country and stands in the way of the kind of reform Americans desperately seek to the broken immigration system.

Our own experience in the Jewish community has taught us that when a society begins to distinguish a group as less deserving of rights, then discrimination, exploitation, and worse can follow. The current system fails more than just immigrants seeking opportunity and fair treatment. It fails all of us by refusing to embrace a future that welcomes diversity and equal access to the American dream.

The consequences of a venomous, anti-immigrant climate impact us all. In Alabama, home to one of the nation’s most restrictive immigration laws, headlines report that in the days after the law took effect, as many as 15 percent of Hispanic students were too afraid to attend school. In other states we hear stories about families broken apart, unpicked crops rotting on the vine, the embarrassing arrest of an international car company employee, and damage to tourism.

Without a doubt these stories highlight the imprudence of harsh state immigration laws. These provisions drive a wedge between law enforcement and immigrant communities. In particular, they deter Hispanics or Latinos — whether documented or undocumented — from reporting or serving as witnesses to criminal activities, including hate crimes.

The most severe impact falls upon Hispanics or Latinos who are undocumented or have undocumented family members, friends or co-workers. For such persons, these laws can create credible fear that any contact with law enforcement will result in arrest or deportation.

As we begin a new year, one that promises to bring key decisions from the courts, let us remember that there is a direct connection between the tenor of this political debate and the consequences to our communities. It is incumbent upon all of us to press for fair and workable federal immigration reform and to demand civil dialogue and respect in the process.

THE immigration crisis that has roiled American politics for decades has faded into history. Illegal immigration is shrinking to a trickle, if that, and will likely never return to the peak levels of 2000. Just as important, immigrants who arrived in the 1990s and settled here are assimilating in remarkable and unexpected ways.

Taken together, these developments, and the demographic future they foreshadow, require bold changes in our approach to both legal and illegal immigration. Put simply, we must shift from an immigration policy, with its emphasis on keeping newcomers out, to an immigrant policy, with an emphasis on encouraging migrants and their children to integrate into our social fabric. “Show me your papers” should be replaced with “Welcome to English class.”

Restrictionists, including those driving much of the debate on the Republican primary trail, still talk as if nothing has changed. But the numbers are stark: the total number of immigrants, legal and illegal, arriving in the 2000s grew at half the rate of the 1990s, according to the Census Bureau.

The most startling evidence of the falloff is the effective disappearance of illegal border crossers from Mexico, with some experts estimating the net number of new Mexicans settling in the United States at zero. The size of the illegal-immigrant population peaked in 2007, with about 58 percent of it of Mexican origin, according to the Pew Hispanic Center; since 2008, that population has shrunk by roughly 200,000 a year. Illegal immigrants from Asia and other parts of the globe have similarly dwindled in numbers.

This new equilibrium is here to stay, in large part because Mexico’s birthrate is plunging. In 1970 a Mexican woman, on average, gave birth to 6.8 babies, and when they entered their 20s, millions journeyed north for work. Today the country’s birthrate — at 2.1 — is approaching that of the United States. That portends a shrinking pool of young adults to meet Mexico’s future labor needs, and less competition for jobs at home.

If the number of immigrants is declining, what about that other nativist bugbear, assimilation? There’s little doubt that immigrants’ potential as economic contributors turns on their ability to assimilate. Fortunately, recent studies by John Pitkin, Julie Park and me show that immigrant parents and children, especially Latinos, are making extraordinary strides in assimilating.

Today, barely a third of adult immigrants have a high-school diploma. But the children of Latino immigrants have always outperformed their parents in educational achievement. By 2030 we expect 80 percent of their children who arrived in the 1990s before age 10 to have completed high school and 18 percent to have a bachelor’s degree.

But it is immigrants’ success in becoming homeowners — often overlooked in immigration debates — that is the truest mark of their desire to adopt America as home. Consider Latinos. Among those in the wave of 1990s immigrants, just 20 percent owned a home in 2000. We expect that percentage to rise to 69 percent — and 74 percent for all immigrants — by 2030, well above the historical average for all Americans.

Who will be selling these homes to these immigrants? The 78 million native-born baby boomers looking to downsize as their children grow up and leave home. Fortunately for them, both immigrants and their children will be there to buy their homes, putting money into baby-boomer pockets and helping to shore up future housing prices.

Indeed, with millions of people retiring every week, America’s immigrants and their children are crucial to future economic growth: economists forecast labor-force growth to drop below 1 percent later this decade because of retiring baby boomers.

Immigrants’ extraordinary progress in assimilating would be faster if federal and state policies encouraged it. Unfortunately, they don’t. This year, the Department of Homeland Security plans to spend a measly $18 million — far less than a tenth of 1 percent of its budget — on helping immigrants assimilate. Meanwhile, states with large immigrant populations are cutting the budgets of community and state colleges, precisely where immigrant students predominantly enroll.

How do we change course and begin treating immigrants as a vast, untapped human resource? The answer goes to the heart of shifting from an immigration policy to an immigrant policy.

For starters, the billions of dollars spent on border enforcement should be gradually redirected to replenishing and boosting the education budget, particularly the Pell grant program for low-income students. Some money could be channeled to nonprofits like ImmigrationWorks and Welcoming America, which are at the forefront of helping migrants assimilate.

Second, the Departments of Labor, Commerce and Education need to play a greater role in immigration policy. Yes, as long as there remains a terrorist threat from abroad, the Department of Homeland Security should have an immigration component. But immigration policy is all about cultivating needed workers. That means helping immigrants and their children graduate from high school and college. It means that no migrant should have to stand in line for an English class. It means assistance in developing migrants’ job skills to better compete in an increasingly information- and knowledge-based economy.

Thanks to our huge foreign-born population (12 percent of the total), America can remain the world’s richest and most powerful nation for decades. Shaping an immigrant policy that focuses on developing the talents of our migrants and their children is the surest way to realize this goal.

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SUMMARY

A series of polls – including one by Fox News released Friday – on immigration show that a majority of respondents, including registered Republican voters, think undocumented immigrants should have a shot at legalizing their status, as long as they meet certain criteria.

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When Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said in a November debate that undocumented immigrants who have deep roots in the United States should have a chance to legally work here, some jaws dropped.

His rivals questioned his conservative credentials. Observers wondered whether he had doomed his chances with Republican voters.

But a series of polls – including one by Fox News released Friday – on immigration shows that a majority of respondents, including registered Republican voters, think undocumented immigrants should have a shot at legalizing their status, as long as they meet certain criteria.

Some experts say the polls underscore that on the issue of immigration, at least, the GOP candidates are largely at odds with voters of their party.

“Gingrich at least put his finger on something – which is, we can play politics all we want but the reality is that these [undocumented] immigrants are integrating and becoming members of this society,” said Allert Grown-Gort, associate director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bachmann, from Minnesota, assailed former House Speaker Gringrich for supporting “amnesty,” and has vowed that as president she would pursue deporting all the millions of undocumented immigrants.

But that, say many experts, is logistically impossible. And deporting — let alone finding — the millions of undocumented immigrants doesn’t ring as practical, or seem fair, to many Americans, Brown-Gort said.

“One of the ironies about immigration is that it’s the most human of stories,” he said. “Bachmann says she wants to send 11 million people back. What does 11 million look like?

“Well, it’s the entire state of Ohio,” Brown-Gort said. “When you deport somebody, you’re not just deporting them, you’re affecting — you’re doing damage to — the community, to the schools, these are steps that should not be taken lightly.”

GOP rival and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney criticized Gingrich’s stance on immigration, saying that it would serve as a magnet for more illegal border-crossers.

“That will only encourage more people to do the same thing. People respond to incentives,” Romney said. “If you could become a permanent resident of the United States by coming here illegally, you’ll do so.”

But in the Fox poll, 66 percent of the nearly 1,000 people surveyed nationally said there should be a path to citizenship if the a person meets requirements such as paying back taxes and learning English.  That goes further than Gingrich’s proposal, which just allows people who – in the example he gave – have lived here for 25 or more years to work here legally, but not be on a path to citizenship.

Nineteen percent of voters in the Fox poll thought all undocumented immigrants should be deported, and another 13 percent take the middle ground of a guest-worker program that would allow immigrants to remain in the United States for a limited time.

Regardless of political party affiliation, most respondents supported a path to legalization.

A majority of Republicans (57 percent), independents (68 percent) and Democrats (73 percent) said they supported giving undocumented immigrants a path to legalization.

Republicans were more likely than Democrats and independents to want the deportation of all undocumented immigrants. But even so, the percentage that did – 26 percent of Republicans, 14 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of independents – was dramatically smaller than those favoring giving a break to immigrants who meet certain criteria.

Another poll, by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a nonpartisan group in Washington, showed that 43 percent of respondents favor combining enforcement with a path to legalization. Another 24 percent thought the U.S. government should focus chiefly on a path to citizenship, and about 29 percent thought the focus should be just on enforcement.

The poll found that while Republican senior citizens preferred enforcement, younger Republicans favored combining enforcement with a path to legalization.

So why has the tenor of the comments on immigration in the GOP debates been decidedly hard-line when polls reflect a Republican voter preference for something softer?

“A lot of the GOP campaigns have been ill-advised by strategists who truly don’t understand the views of likely Republican voters on the issue of immigration,” said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, a Washington, DC based advocacy group.

“The strategists have bought the argument of anti-immigrant restrictionists who in the past five, six years have penetrated the conservative movement.”

Aguilar, like other Latino conservatives, including  U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, has pushed for the Republican Party to soften its take-no-prisoners tone on immigration, particularly if it is to win the support of Latino voters.

“They [restrictionists] have hijacked the issue of immigration in the Republican Party,” said Aguilar, who served in the George W. Bush Administration as chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship. “While they’re a small minority [within Republicans], they’re very vocal, they have a very well-organized political machine and they’re very PR [public relations] savvy. They have convinced the people they advise that the majority of Republicans are anti-immigrant.”

It’s not just polls that indicate divergent views on illegal immigration between voters and campaign talk on the issue, Aguilar says. State Republican legislators themselves have issued warnings about, or helped shelve or defeat, hard-line immigration bills that were introduced in many states.

Of the GOP candidates, Aguilar said, “the only two that understand the importance of the Hispanic voter and view of American Republicans are Gingrich and [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry.”

Perry, who supports some hard-line positions on immigration, came under fire by his fellow GOP rivals for having backed legislation in his state that allows undocumented students to attend public colleges at in-state tuition rates. Perry also does not support the construction of a fence along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, calling it impractical.

“Perry started coming down in the polls,” Aguilar said. “Restrictionists said it was because of his [moderate] comments on immigration, but he came down in the polls because of his poor performance in the debates.”

Contrary to the predictions of many observers that Gingrich would hurt his surging support after his comments on immigration, he has seen an uptick in polls, Aguilar said.

Aguilar, whose group has reached out to various candidates’ campaigns to offer advice on reaching Latino voters, said a Republican candidate would be wise to support “a balanced, common-sense approach to immigration that goes beyond enforcement-only.”

That is an approach, Aguilar said, that can win a Republican candidate support from a conservative base and Latinos, including those who are disillusioned by Obama.

A recent poll by Latino Decisions suggests that immigration reform is the top issue influencing the Latino vote in the lead-up to next year’s presidential race, despite an overall waning interest in the race.

The poll reported that 42 percent of Latino voters were concerned about immigration. Unemployment – which remains higher for Latinos than for the general population — came in second, at a distant 23 percent.

Obama campaigned on a promise to reform immigration in his first year in office, a promise that is believed to have helped him win the majority of Latino votes. Increasingly, Latino voters who consider immigration a priority issue have expressed frustration over what they see as a failure by Obama to push harder for comprehensive immigration reform.

“[Republican candidates] can make inroads into a constituency that was key to Obama winning,” Aguilar said. “They need 40 percent of the Latino vote. Latinos are very upset with Obama. He pandered to them in a very crass way.”

If the Latino Decisions poll is any indication, swaying Latino voters will take work. Even though they are disillusioned,  54 percent Latinos still said in the poll that they were certain that they would vote for Obama in 2012.

Obama’s re-election campaign officials say that Republicans have been no friend to Latinos, and that they have been the obstacle to efforts to reform the immigration system.

“The choice for Hispanic Americans,” said campaign spokesperson Gabriela Domenzain, “is between  a President who passed legislation that kept two million Latinos out of poverty, provided 150,000 additional Hispanic students with the means to go to college, and fought to pass comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act and a Republican field whose leading candidates oppose the DREAM Act and a path to citizenship for immigrants and would slash funding for education, Medicare, and Social Security.”

Washington has spent years trying to force-feed green jobs, to little good effect. So here’s a better idea: Expand the number of green cards, as in the number of immigrant visas for foreign-born graduates of American universities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

This could even be bipartisan. President Obama this week praised the latest report from his jobs council that proposed more such visas. And this week Idaho Republican Raúl Labrador, a freshman of tea party provenance, introduced a bill in the House to do the same. The evidence is overwhelming that if we let these young people stay in America, rather than sending them home, they’ll end up building new companies and tens of thousands of new jobs.

Consider the immigrant record on technology start-ups, which is summarized in a 2009 Kauffman Foundation study, “Foreign-Born Entrepreneurs.” Vivek Wadhwa, a Duke University researcher, found that in 25% of “the U.S. science and technology companies founded from 1995 to 2005, the chief executive or lead technologist was foreign born.” In 2005 those firms produced $52 billion in revenue with 450,000 employees. In Silicon Valley alone, the percentage of immigrant-founded start-ups was 52%.

Mr. Wadhwa found that 74% of these entrepreneurs held advanced degrees, and three-quarters of those who had advanced degrees had concentrations in science, technology, engineering or math. “The vast majority of these company founders didn’t come to the United States as entrepreneurs—52% came to study, 40% came to work,” he writes. The study adds that in 2006 the inventors or co-inventors of more than 25% of U.S. patent applications were from foreign nationals residing in America.

None of this is news to American industry. “Innovation requires innovators,” Darla Whitaker, a Texas Instruments senior vice president, told a House subcommittee last week. Many of the graduates her company recruits are foreign born. The long wait for a green card, she said, is “frustrating for them, limits employer flexibility, and diminishes productivity.” Many of them pack up and go home.

Here’s another bureaucratic wrinkle: India and China have a disproportionate number of such science and engineering graduates, but U.S. law says that any one country can only tap 7% of the total green cards available. This has pushed many of the most attractive recruits to the back of the line. Yet Mr. Wadhwa reports that Indian immigrants founded 26% of immigrant-founded start-ups in Silicon Valley in 2005, which is more than the next four groups from Britain, China, Taiwan and Japan combined. The law’s country limit means that the green card wait can be nine years for many Indians.

Mr. Labrador’s bill would create a special green card category for science, technology, math and engineering master’s and Ph.D. grads who have a job offer. There would be no quota caps, and company recruits would be fast-tracked through the visa process.

Opponents claim these foreigners steal jobs from Americans, but unemployment is low in industries that recruit these highly skilled workers. Everyone wishes more Americans studied science, engineering or math, but not enough do. For example, 55% of U.S. master’s degrees and 63% of doctorates in electrical engineering go to foreign-born students. Mr. Labrador’s bill would collect a fee from employers who sponsor these foreign-born recruits that will go to scholarships for American students.

Meantime, the U.S. has to compete for talent. “We’re finding a lot of these graduates get job offers, but when they find out how long it will take them to get green cards they leave and go work in other countries where they become our competitors,” Mr. Labrador says. The global competition for human capital is as fierce as it is for financial capital, and the U.S. can’t afford to reject either one.

The fight for the Republican presidential nomination has produced a spectacle that seems truly odd. Although illegal immigration has in recent years been drying up—according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center, it has fallen to 300,000 in 2009 from 850,000 in 2000, while Princeton’s Douglas Massey says that “[f]or the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero”—the issue remains bitterly contentious in the GOP race.

During a debate in Orlando last month, Texas Gov. Rick Perry defended his state’s policy of charging undocumented aliens the same tuition at state-run colleges and universities as ordinary citizens—a policy that commanded bipartisan support in the Texas legislature when he signed it into law in 2001. Mitt Romney, Herman Cain and the other GOP presidential candidates practically hissed Mr. Perry off the stage, and after the debate much of the tea party joined plenty of regular Republicans in denouncing the man.

If illegal immigration is down, why do Republicans still care so much about it? Permit a Californian to attempt an answer.

Since 1986, when President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, the undocumented population of California has risen to around 2.6 million from around one million. This influx has done just what you would have expected: It has affected every aspect of life in the Golden State.

In California’s public schools, the proportion of children in kindergarten through third grade for whom English represents a second language now stands at almost two out of five. In agricultural regions, entire towns have turned over—with a little zig-zagging, you could hike from town to town for much of the 450-mile length of the Central Valley without hearing any language but Spanish.

Consider one neighborhood in Redwood City, a town on the San Francisco peninsula. Known locally as Little Mexico, the neighborhood, which centers on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Middlefield Road, looks and feels so pervasively south-of-the-border that if you were led there blindfolded you would think you were in Tijuana or Mexicali.

I assumed when I moved to California almost two decades ago that Little Mexico, which then comprised perhaps a dozen blocks, would gradually shrink or atrophy, like North Beach, the Italian neighborhood in San Francisco, or Little Italy in Manhattan. Instead, Little Mexico has roughly tripled in size. Just miles from the headquarters of Apple, Google, HP and Oracle, the engine of assimilation has been humming ineluctably along—in reverse.

Yes, I know. The economic benefits California has derived from immigration, including illegal immigration, have proven enormous. Some studies even suggest that, taking into account the economic growth their labor has made possible, and the sales taxes and other imposts they have paid, undocumented aliens have contributed more to government coffers than they have drawn down.

And even after the American economy finally recovers, falling poverty and birth rates in Mexico suggest that illegal immigration may return only as a small stream—perhaps even a trickle—and not a flood. Over the next decade or so, many of the aliens now in the Golden State will perhaps go home to a modernizing Mexico while Californians come to accept—or at least become resigned to—those who remain, acquiescing in measures that would grant them legal residency and eventually citizenship.

Yet even if a single alien were never again to enter California, and even if half those now in the Golden State illegally were suddenly to return home while the other half magically became citizens, the federal government would still have permitted millions to enter the state in violation of the law. This raises fundamental questions about our constitutional order. How can the federal government fail for years on end to perform a duty as basic as policing the border?

Strangely, in Tuesday evening’s “economic” debate in Hanover, N.H., immigration, legal or otherwise, was never mentioned. Indeed, Messrs. Romney and Cain have demonstrated less interest in illegal immigration itself than in using the issue to attack Mr. Perry. Mr. Romney, whose jobs plan includes no fewer than 59 points, has said of illegal immigration, “Of course we build a fence,” as if that were all there were to it. If the other GOP candidates wish to place themselves to the right of Mr. Perry on this issue, fine. But Republicans would have more faith in their ability to secure the border if they demonstrated that they had given the matter some thought.

Mr. Perry should stop sounding so defensive. He has opposed illegal immigration as stoutly as anyone, but, alone among the candidates, he has dealt with the reality of life on the border. Since his state has the good sense to provide only modest welfare benefits, he should explain, Texans understand that immigrants come to Texas to work, not to collect handouts. And they see no contradiction between calling on the federal government to enforce the law and making the best of the situation Washington has imposed on them, helping undocumented aliens, once in the state, to acquire skills and an education.

A quarter-century after Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, his example remains instructive. Reagan supported one provision of the 1986 act, an amnesty for the three million undocumented aliens then in the country, only because he believed that other provisions, which fortified border enforcement and required employers to verify the legal status of their workers, would end illegal immigration. “Future generations . . . will be thankful,” the president said, “for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship.”

Thankful? Americans instead feel angry—and, for all his big-hearted openness toward immigrants, I believe Reagan would have shared their anger, recognizing the failure of the federal government to “regain control of our borders” as a profound breach of faith. That breach of faith, he would have insisted, must now be repaired.

Washington –  President Barack Obama said that while he can lessen some of the injustices in the current U.S. immigration system, real progress requires changing the law.

His obligation as president is to enforce the existing law, Obama said in a White House roundtable with correspondents from Efe and other Spanish-language media outlets.

Recent changes in deportation policy that prioritize expelling undocumented immigrants who committed crimes are not sufficient, according to the president, who said the problem cannot be resolved through “administrative” measures.

Amending the policy on deportations will not achieve the path to citizenship for undocumented migrants “that I believe must be part of the solution,” he told the journalists.

Obama said his administration will continue to press for comprehensive immigration reform, one of his 2008 campaign promises.

His failure so far to deliver on that promise is one of the factors that have sparked a drastic drop in support for the Democratic president among Hispanic voters, which according to the latest surveys stands at 48 percent, compared with 67 percent in 2008.

The president, however, told the media roundtable that Latino voters will not punish him in 2012 for his not being able to persuade Republicans in Congress to do the right thing on immigration.

Turning to the economy, Obama said the jobs bill he sent to Congress on Monday will have an “enormous impact” on the Hispanic community.

Part of the program, $15 billion, will go to investment in infrastructure, something that will benefit Latino workers with their strong presence in construction.

And the more than 1 million Hispanics without jobs could see their unemployment benefits prolonged, the president said.

Obama believes that the measure has the right mix of tax cuts and investment to provide an immediate stimulus to the economy, in which joblessness is around 9.1 percent.

One of the groups hit hardest by the recession are young Hispanics, with an unemployment rate of 19.3 percent.

To try and reduce that percentage, the White House will help the states create summer job programs for low-income Latino youths in 2012.

The president also discussed a demand from Congress that his administration hand over all records relating to the possible involvement of three former and current White House staff members with the botched “Fast and Furious” gun-trafficking sting.

The White House Office of Legal Counsel is reviewing the congressional request, Obama said.

He said he did not learn about Fast and Furious until the operation went badly wrong and that White House officials were told only that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was planning an operation aimed at reducing the smuggling of guns to Mexico, where more than 40,000 have died in drug-related violence.

The controversial 2009-2010 undercover operation saw ATF agents allow some 2,000 weapons purchased by straw buyers at U.S. gun shops to be smuggled into Mexico.

The idea was to trace them to powerful drug traffickers in Mexico, but once Fast and Furious got underway ATF agents realized they had no dependable way to keep track of the guns, which eventually began appearing at crime scenes on both sides of the border.

The operation has caused tension between the United States and Mexico and is the object of separate investigations by the Justice Department and Congress.

Obama said that the operation does not represent the policy of the administration and stressed his interest in collaborating as closely as possible with Mexico to deal with the scourge of drug trafficking.

Worries over ease of terrorists’ entry into U.S. means legislation remains elusive

Marisa Schultz/ The Detroit News

The week before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President George W. Bush welcomed Mexican President Vicente Fox to the White House for his first state dinner of upscale Tex-Mex.

Fox proclaimed the two countries could reach an immigration agreement by year’s end. And Bush, bucking some in his Republican Party, entertained ideas of granting legal status for some Mexican immigrants.

The news of high-level immigration talks thrilled Veronica T. Thronson, who worked in New York for an immigrant advocacy group. Their midtown office was abuzz with excitement that reform was finally going to happen in 2001. They pushed out press releases heralding the progress.

“Then Sept. 11 happened,” said Thronson, who now heads Michigan State University College of Law’s Immigration Law Clinic. “We knew that immigrants were going to be blamed somehow. That day it happened.”

Shortly after it was discovered that 9/11 hijackers entered the country with legally issued visas, the conversation around immigration became inextricably linked with terrorism. The anti-foreigner movement that took shape and the preoccupation with protecting the United States effectively knocked immigration reform off the national agenda. Ten years later, comprehensive legislation to alter how and when foreigners can become citizens has remained elusive.

Even a small part of immigration reform, known as the DREAM Act, has failed to pass Congress every time it’s been introduced in the past decade. It would allow undocumented students a pathway to citizenship through two years of college or military service.

After the initial horror of the terrorist attacks dissipated, the country was rocked by a prolonged recession in which millions of legal citizens were jobless. The downturn coincided with the spread of immigrant populations.

Historically, immigrants primarily settled in six states, including New York, California and Texas, said Ann Chih Lin, associate professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. But during the boom years of the 1990s, big influxes spread to states throughout the country. That set the stage for difficulties as some Americans became preoccupied with security, feared outsiders and had a grassroots anti-immigrant sentiment, Lin said.

“You can overlook a lot of foreigners when the economy is going well,” Lin said. “The bad economy stranded them in places that didn’t have the infrastructure to help resolve some of these problems.”

Assisting illegal immigrants hasn’t been a political priority in Washington, and the focus instead has been on border security, deportations and ensuring people don’t come to the United States to do harm. Though he supports the DREAM Act and immigration reform, President Barack Obama has ramped up deportations and deployed more security personnel to the southern border than ever before.

David Koelsch, professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, views the shift in attitude since 9/11 as a “net positive.” Prior to the attacks, immigration was a “sleeping giant” with laws not being enforced and people not associating the influx of foreigners with security.

Afterward, the Department of Homeland Security was set up. There’s better coordination among federal agencies, and local authorities are working with federal agencies to facilitate deportations following jail sentences, said Koelsch, who directs the Immigration Law Clinic at the college.

Lin and Thronson believe major immigration reform would have had a good chance of passing during the Bush administration had it not been for 9/11. Koelsch believes that’s an oversimplification. All three want comprehensive immigration reform, but their visions for solutions vary.

Meantime, the inability of Congress to pass an immigration package has spurred state and local politicians to pass their own laws, such as Arizona’s legislation giving police broad powers to detain those suspected of being undocumented, as well as legislation in New Mexico and elsewhere to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.

Even in Michigan — with among the lowest percentages of undocumented residents, according to the Pew Hispanic Center — a package of bills is pending in the Legislature that would crack down on undocumented immigrants who live and work here. One bill is similar to Arizona’s divisive law.

As Thronson supervises her students, she looks back a decade ago to the progress in the making. “We were so close,” she said. “We were so close.”