Last modified: Sunday, August 5, 2007 1:46 AM EDT EDITORIAL: Immigration talk, immigration enforcement The language translator corps that were collectively profiled in last Sunday's newspaper - teams employed by police departments, courts, hospitals and other institutions to deal with the non-English speaking - have looked like the eye of the storm over the past several months. While debate has swirled over immigration reform - a debate with the fact at its core that at least 12 million people are in the United States illegally - they have kept up their work dutifully: interviewing in Spanish a crime witness, helping get medical care for someone who speaks only Cape Verdean Creole, filling out a restraining order application for a native speaker of Arabic. The immigration storm is not over, but it hit a lull after the recent defeat of a sweeping reform bill in the Senate. That lull is welcome, especially in places where an inability to speak English fluently makes clients immediately suspect to some of the public, but we hope it does not last too long. We favor full enforcement of immigration laws. And from that perspective, national policy looks more bizarre than any Wonderland Lewis Carroll ever invented. The immigration system is broken down and the immigration laws are unenforceable, we're told. That's well enough ... until it becomes clear that the tellers are opposed to various aspects of immigration law and want changes. And previous White House administrations have had a similar outlook to varying degrees. The laws have been amended to protect one domestic interest or another, then have been ignored, largely to protect the interest of providing low-cost or highly skilled labor. And now we have 12 million illegal immigrants, and perhaps as many as 20 million, enough to swamp any thought of an orderly exit strategy. That the public won't swallow a rationale that boils down to "we can't enforce immigration laws because we didn't want to" goes without saying. Sinking the latest reform proposal was a provision that would have legalized 12 million illegal aliens, a plan that opponents blasted as amnesty. That fact points to where the limits for compromise lay, but it leaves other areas for compromise open. These include: A provision called AgJOBS, which would legalize about a million farm workers. Without such legislation, consumers would be cursing immigration reform with every trip down the produce aisle of the supermarket. A lifting of the cap on visas for high-tech workers. This is not overly palatable and should be accepted as a strictly temporary measure. We would far prefer if jobs like these were going to American workers, but students are not choosing these fields in necessary numbers. Already Microsoft has opened a facility in Canada with the purpose of recruiting the foreign workers shut out because of U.S. inertia on immigration reform. Improved technology at border checkpoints. Improved communication among agencies. The sharing of Social Security information with immigration enforcement officials, revealing when more than one business is employing a worker with the same Social Security number, is already outing some illegal workers. Similar cross-referencing among other departments - and with state and local authorities - would pay dividends. These recommendations could attract majority acceptance. But even if they are politically palatable, presidential politics will probably delay meaningful immigration reform until after the next election. With that in mind, our appreciation for the translator corps is magnified. Part of the value of these teams of bi- and multi-lingual employees is they offer a means to keep the communication lines open with immigrants who might otherwise be inclined to go underground because of legal issues. Beyond that, they expedite access to medical care, police protection and basic human services. That is in keeping with The Sun Chronicle area's traditional treatment of immigrants, particularly in communities with an industrial base like Attleboro, North Attleboro and Mansfield. One wave of immigrants after another has been welcomed to jobs, but has had to prove itself to gain social acceptance. Locally, the view of immigration has been hard-nosed, but never heartless. FOR AN opposing viewpoint, see Blame Great Divergence for immigration woes, Page D7.