Source: The Economist.
THE strangest commentary produced by the news that the Boston terrorists seem to have been a pair of Chechen brothers from Dagestan has been speculation that this could mean trouble for immigration reform. The initial speculation earlier this week, before the bombers’ identities were known, involved comparisons to 2001, when the Bush administration’s immigration-reform plans were put on hold after the September 11th attacks. Since last night’s news, some anti-immigration conservative media figures have begun sending out feelers. This morning in congress, Charles Grassley, a Republican senator, said the events underlined the need to ensure that “those who would do us harm do not receive benefits under the immigration laws.”
Immigration reform is basically about two problems. One is how to give some kind of legal status to the estimated 11m undocumented foreigners currently living in America, most of them Hispanic. The other is how to smooth the tangled, restrictive visa system that currently prevents American businesses from hiring foreigners they’d like to recruit, as well as creating absurd travel complications for many Americans with non-citizen spouses and relatives. In discussions of these problems, possible terrorism by legal American residents born in Dagestan is not usually considered a major factor. For Marco Rubio, the Republican senator who has been trying to craft a bipartisan immigration-reform bill, the idea that a goofball lone-wolf terrorist attack by a frustrated Chechen boxer and his younger brother could torpedo his efforts must sound bizarre.
Categories: Americas