On January 10, Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, delivered the fifth of the 2004-2005 Bradley Lectures. Edited excerpts follow.

Our current immigration system is broken. In the last fiscal year, all along the border, from coast to coast, we caught more than a million migrants. Nobody really knows how many get through for every one we catch, though the best estimates I have seen suggest that about a million get through and 400,000 to 500,000 end up staying in the United States.

Entire industries cannot find the workers they need and are forced to operate outside the law. The reasons for this include our increasingly educated workforce and our increasingly bifurcated, high- and low-wage economy. You cannot grow a business without workers--at least not in most cases. And without foreign-born workers, these American businesses would not be growing, or certainly not growing at anything like the rates they have been able to grow in recent years.

Living in the shadows on the wrong side of the law takes a huge toll, particularly on children. The breadwinners operate under false names, with false documents, afraid of becoming personally known to their employers or of having contact with authorities--any authorities, including those at the local hospital and at their children's schools. These families hesitate to put down roots, and they move frequently, often with the law--the immigration service, the Social Security Administration, or some other law enforcement--not far behind.

Sensible Reform

What is the immigration policy that makes sense in today's increasingly integrated but dangerous world? As things stand now, we are asking the American people to accept an inevitable end to the rule of law as they know it--guaranteed, routine, ongoing illegality in their neighborhoods and workplaces. It is an unthinkable request--no matter how good immigrants are for our economy.

The president proposes to connect willing workers with willing employees--not to create a new flow or add to the total number that enter the county each year, but merely to give most of the people who would otherwise come illegally a safe, orderly, legal option with a guest worker program. The president proposes to get rid of the existing black market by creating a path to legalization--by asking illegal workers who can otherwise prove their bona fides to come forward, pay a penalty, and get on the right side of the law.
 
The president recognizes that the all-important first step in addressing the problem is accepting the reality of international supply and demand. He understands the business need for a steady stream of reliable workers, and he grasps that the goal of policy should be to manage and make the most of the market-driven flow, not try futilely to interdict it.

The Politics of Reform

Many critics look at the president's proposal and see only liberalizing when they feel what is needed is tightening, and they accuse the president of being soft on enforcement. But these critics could not be more wrong. His approach is the only way we are going to get control of our borders--the only path to enhanced security and restoring the rule of law in our communities.

Currently, Congress responds to the public's fears--fears about economic displacement, assimilation, crime, a changing ethnic stock--with showy, tough-sounding, restrictive laws. But then, for business and other reasons, we do not enforce that legislation. But the price is very, very high--because it means that our immigration law is essentially a dead letter here at home and largely a joke abroad. And this is what the Bush plan promises to change by introducing more realistic legislation--more honest quotas, more in line with the reality of our economic needs--and then enforcing those new laws to the letter.

The existing arrangement on immigration must be replaced by realistic laws strictly enforced. The new bargain must be clear and unequivocal: employers who play by the rules will get the labor they need through the guest worker exchange; those who do not will be cut out of the program. Migrants too must be made to understand that a new era has dawned. The United States is open for business--officially now--but the old days of "don't ask, don't tell" and a pervasive underground economy are over.
 
And as a result--and this will be the critical payoff of the Bush proposals--the ratio of legal to illegal behavior will change. Most people will abide by the rules, and offenders will stand out, making it much easier for law enforcement to zero in on them. In the current climate, zero tolerance (or anything even close) is inconceivable. Under the new bargain, meaningful control will become a plausible goal.

The challenge is to design an employer-based system that works. The key will be getting employers to police themselves--using the threat that if they violate the rules, they will be barred from participating in the guest worker program and will have no access to the labor they need.
 
Reform along these lines is the only solution that can work in the long run.