With an energy bill in place - however flawed - and hearings to come fairly soon for his second Supreme Court nominee, President Bush may be about ready to turn to his next top priority: reforming immigration law.
Of course, the president's idea of reform may not mesh with those of many other interest groups, even though he's trying to please almost all of them at once.
The Bush immigration proposal calls for combining toughened border enforcement with a program of legal "guest workers" who would go home after a set period of years. One idea his aides have floated would legalize undocumented immigrants already here at least for some period of time.
It's a package that pleases almost no one, from the Minutemen volunteers who patrolled parts of the Arizona and California borders with Mexico this spring and summer to immigration advocates who want amnesty and full citizenship made available to illegal immigrants already in this country.
Chances are there will be some action this fall, if only because all sides would lose face heading into the 2006 election year if there are no changes. But the compromise that emerges now figures to be little more than a rehash of today's disorganized scene, where illegals cross the border by the thousands, face deportation every day they're here, but still contribute significantly to the national economy.
That won't assuage anger like what erupted at a midsummer town hall meeting in Los Angeles, where hecklers dominated the session organized by a black organization called the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny.
"We have been invaded, there's no other word for it," shouted Terry Anderson, a part-time radio talk show host.
"Americans are losing their middle-class status because of illegal aliens," yelled another participant.
"A lot of black boys and girls are dropping out of school because their classes are overwhelmed with illegal Hispanics," insisted another.
These common claims color the debate in Washington as congressmen become aware that immigration is the No. 1 concern of constituents in more than 100 of the nation's 435 House districts. That was the finding of a July poll of Congress by National Journal magazine. The survey also made it clear immigration reform is the top priority in far more Republican districts than Democratic ones.
This may explain why Republicans are more involved in the issue today than Democrats.
The Bush program doesn't satisfy most of those Republicans. One thing that rankles them is his plan to allow "guest workers" now living in America illegally to register for a newly legalized stay without returning to their home country first. By contrast, a plan offered by Texas Sen. John Cronyn and Arizona Sen. Jon Ky, both Republicans, would compel illegals already here to go home before applying to come back legally for a maximum of six years.
Meanwhile, Colorado's Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, leader of the hard-line faction on immigration, counters with a bill making it a felony to live in this country without lawful status.
He would also set up a guest worker program, but open it only to employers who produce evidence that they need new immigrants to fill jobs legal residents won't take, while sharply limiting guest worker stays here.
The issue has made Tancredo a potential Republican presidential candidate. For sure, he'd get the votes of most volunteer Minutemen if he ran.
If there's one thing all parties appear to agree on, it's the need for a bigger Border Patrol. The Cronyn-Kyl bill would create 10,000 positions both for enhanced border enforcement and to visit employers to check immigration status of their workers.
Bush also says he wants to increase Border Patrol numbers, even as he seeks to encourage workers to come to America. This idea is favored by many Latino politicians and by thousands of businesses that depend on a flow of foreign workers for cheap labor.
But all sides gloss over a key point: Guest workers never remain guests for long. More than half the workers who arrived here for the World War II and postwar Bracero program stayed, many eventually becoming legalized in the amnesty program of the late 1980s.
It's not just Hispanic immigrants who don't leave once they've arrived, no matter what the law says. Filipinos, Indians, Pakistanis, Poles and others here on H-1B visas with strictly limited stays almost always remain after their legal time is up.
All of which means today's confusing scene along the border and in the workplace probably won't change soon, even if Congress and the president get together on some patchwork compromise so-called immigration reform.
The bottom line: no matter how much happy talk might surround the bill-signing ceremony for such a plan, illegal immigration won't go away. For no plan now proposed offers anything that could remotely be called a comprehensive or foolproof solution.
CLARIFICATION: In a previous column, Proposition 73 was mistakenly referred to as a "parental consent" measure, requiring consent from a judge or from parents of minor females seeking abortions. It is in fact a parental notification measure, requiring (with a few exceptions) written notice to parents at least 48 hours before such procedures.
Tom Elias is author of book "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It." Email him at tdelias@aol.com
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