Immigration and the SOTU

Now that the Alito confirmation is done, Congress will begin debating immigration reform before long. In last night’s State of the Union, this was the snippet about immigration:

“Keeping America competitive requires an immigration system that upholds our laws, reflects our values and serves the interests of our economy. Our nation needs orderly and secure borders. To meet this goal, we must have stronger immigration enforcement and border protection. And we must have a rational, humane guest-worker program that rejects amnesty, allows temporary jobs for people who seek them legally and reduces smuggling and crime at the border. “

It’s mostly platitudes, but the guest worker aspect will get sticky with quite a few Republicans, who want reform limited to enforcement.

See here for a slightly more expanded view of Bush’s proposal, which I think would cost somewhere in the area of 100 gazillion dollars. When I was on WFAE’s “Charlotte Talks” last month, I was the only person who was pessimistic about comprehensive immigration reform being passed this year. I hope I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen anything so far to convince me otherwise.