So the President of the United States calls a joint session of Congress to deliver a speech on health care. He then issues every member of Congress a call to action, and in the midst of it, an ignorant Congressman from South Carolina (falsely) yells out that the President is lying when talking about illegal immigrants in the bill. That Congressman goes off to raise an obscene amount of money in his re-election bid, and Nancy Pelosi initiates a successful official rebuke from the other members of the House.

What got lost in the fray? The fact that we cannot put off the issue of immigration reform much longer.

After the failed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 everyone knew that the issue would be dead in the water for a while. The fight was bloody, and the split was not necessarily along party lines. In fact, the final Senate vote to kill the bill was 34-61. In short, a bill that aimed to get bi-partisan support, instead found bi-partisan opposition and never really had a good chance of passing through the Senate chamber.

However, now it is time to roll up our sleeves and get back to the table. Moving beyond the basic human rights arguments for immigration reform, we are also seeing the broader issue of having 12-20 million undocumented individuals in the country when it comes to health care and the census. We must move beyond the traditional false choice of immigration policy: amnesty vs. enforcement. Successful reform must contain elements of both.

Indeed, a comprehensive solution is exactly that. We must bring people of both parties together, to pool all the best ideas out there into one bill that will lay the foundation for our immigration strategy moving forward.

We must accept reality and include a pathway to citizenship for the 12-20 million people who are here illegally now. This must include a requirement that immigrants learn English and pay a fine for breaking the law. They also should not jump in front of current applicants for citizenship.

Successful reform also must include some conservative elements: we must enforce the laws we already have by inreasing funding to put more teeth behind them. We also must increase our border patrol by a minimum of 30,000 personnel and update the technology we use to patrol our border.

The result would be a compromise package that, if done correctly, could reach the 60 vote margin for cloture in the Senate. That is the hurdle we face.

Members of Congress must begin to work now, so they will be able to move quickly on a bill after they pass health care reform.

-- Newell for Congress Campaign