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Delegates to the state Republican Convention next week are poised to pass a resolution calling for the repeal of House Bill 116 -- the measure that creates a guest worker program for immigrants who lack proper documentation.
The bill has been acknowledged nationally as a sober and innovative approach to a problem that's been allowed to fester by the inaction of the federal government. Its opponents see it as a mechanism to reward people who break the law.
It is unfortunate and ironic that such a farsighted approach to such a complicated problem might be censured as a result of such nearsighted criticism.
The bill was sponsored by legislators with bona fide conservative credentials. It passed with a sizeable majority vote. Its precepts are endorsed by a variety of institutions, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Sutherland Institute and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And polls consistently show a majority of Utahns support the approach.
But critics ignore all that, and howl that the bill represents amnesty for people who willingly break the law. They are wrong. Amnesty can be conferred only by the federal government. In reality, the bill represents an enforcement-oriented approach by creating a database of immigrants here without proper documentation. It assesses fines for violating visa laws, it requires background checks, includes a vigorous preventative approach to the problem of identity theft, and it makes it easier to prosecute businesses that knowingly employ undocumented workers.
HB116 isn't perfect, and its framers acknowledged that by delaying its implementation for two years - to fine-tune its provisions, deal with potential legal problems, and to secure cooperation from the federal government.
But none of these arguments have been persuasive to the bill's most strident critics, who are bound by a deliberate and self-imposed myopia, choosing to see virtually no value in any realistic approach to the problem. Realistic, because rounding up and deporting all undocumented immigrants is not realistic, not even remotely.
Factions in the Utah Republican Party have chosen to make one's position on HB116 a "litmus test" for an office holder's ideological fitness. It is a shame that public officials who have entered a tempestuous arena in a good faith search for solutions, might be condemned by those who offer no solution, but who choose instead to scoff and scold from the sidelines.
