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In this April 18, 2013 photo Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., speaks at a Capitol Hill news conference with the Senate's "Gang of Eight", the bipartisan team pushing an immigration overhaul, to outline their immigration reform legislation that would creates a path for 11 million unauthorized immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship.

Associated Press

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WASHINGTON Distilled to their discouraging essence, Republicans' reasons for retreating from immigration reform reflect waning confidence in American culture and in the political mission only Republicans can perform restoring America's economic vigor. Without this, the nation will have a dismal future only Democrats can relish: government growing in order to allocate scarce opportunity.

Many Republicans say addressing immigration will distract from a winning focus on Obamacare. But a mature party avoids monomania, and Obamacare's manifold defects are obvious enough that voters will not require nine more months of reminders.

Many Republicans say immigration policy divides their party. If, however, the party becomes a gaggle of veto groups enforcing unanimities, it will become what completely harmonious parties are: small.

Many Republicans see in immigrants only future Democratic votes. This descent into Democratic-style identity politics is unworthy of Republicans, and unrealistic. United States history tells a consistent story the party identified with prosperity, and hence opportunity, prospers.

Many Republicans have understandable cultural concerns, worrying that immigrants from this hemisphere do not experience the "psychological guillotine" that severed trans-Atlantic immigrants from prior allegiances. But is there data proving that American culture has lost its assimilative power? Thirty-five percent of illegal adult immigrants have been here at least 15 years, 28 percent for 10 to 14 years and only 15 percent for less than five years. Thirty-five percent own their homes. Are we sure they are resisting assimilation?

Many Republicans rightly say control of borders is an essential ingredient of national sovereignty. But net immigration from Mexico has recently been approximately zero. Border Patrol spending, which quadrupled in the 1990s, tripled in the 2000s. With illegal entries near a 40-year low, and a 2012 Government Accountability Office assessment that border security was then 84 percent effective, will a "border surge" of $30 billion more for the further militarization (actually, the East Germanization) of the 1,969 miles assuage remaining worries?

Many Republicans say Barack Obama cannot be trusted to enforce reforms. This is, however, no reason for not improving immigration laws that subsequent presidents will respect. Besides, the Obama administration's deportations are, if anything, excessive, made possible by post-9/11 technological and manpower resources. As The Economist tartly notes, "a mass murder committed by mostly Saudi terrorists resulted in an almost limitless amount of money being made available for the deportation of Mexican house-painters."

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George F. Will: Why immigration reform matters: Unity in the Republican Party

WASHINGTON Distilled to their discouraging essence, Republicans reasons for retreating from immigration reform reflect waning confidence in American culture and in the political mission only Republicans can perform restoring Americas economic vigor. Without this, the nation will have a dismal future only Democrats can relish: government growing in order to allocate scarce opportunity.

Many Republicans say addressing immigration will distract from a winning focus on Obamacare. But a mature party avoids monomania, and Obamacares manifold defects are obvious enough that voters will not require nine more months of reminders.

Many Republicans say immigration policy divides their party. If, however, the party becomes a gaggle of veto groups enforcing unanimities, it will become what completely harmonious parties are: small.

Many Republicans see in immigrants only future Democratic votes. This descent into Democratic-style identity politics is unworthy of Republicans, and unrealistic. U.S. history tells a consistent story the party identified with prosperity, and hence opportunity, prospers.

Many Republicans have understandable cultural concerns, worrying that immigrants from this hemisphere do not experience the psychological guillotine that severed trans-Atlantic immigrants from prior allegiances.

But is there data proving that American culture has lost its assimilative power? Thirty-five percent of illegal adult immigrants have been here at least 15 years, 28 percent for 10 to 14 years and only 15 percent for less than five years. Thirty-five percent own their homes. Are we sure they are resisting assimilation?

Many Republicans rightly say control of borders is an essential ingredient of national sovereignty. But net immigration from Mexico has recently been approximately zero. Border Patrol spending, which quadrupled in the 1990s, tripled in the 2000s.

With illegal entries near a 40-year low, and a 2012 Government Accountability Office assessment that border security was then 84 percent effective, will a border surge of $30 billion more for the further militarization (actually, the East Germanization) of the 1,969 miles assuage remaining worries?

Many Republicans say Barack Obama cannot be trusted to enforce reforms. This is, however, no reason for not improving immigration laws that subsequent presidents will respect.

Besides, the Obama administrations deportations are, if anything, excessive, made possible by post-9/11 technological and manpower resources. As The Economist tartly notes, a mass murder committed by mostly Saudi terrorists resulted in an almost limitless amount of money being made available for the deportation of Mexican house-painters.

The rest is here:

GEORGE WILL: Here is why immigration reform matters

Thirteen years ago, President George W. Bush welcomed Vicente Fox of Mexico to Washington to lay the groundwork for an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws sensing that fellow Republicans were finally ready to go along with a new legalization effort.

The push included a rare address to Congress on Sept. 6, 2001, when Fox declared that immigrants invariably enrich the cultural life of the land that receives them.

Five days later, jetliners hijacked by foreign terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, heightening security fears and scuttling Bushs immigration plans.

For more than a quarter century, it has never been the right time for immigration reform. And the biggest stumbling block always seems to be concerns, primarily among conservatives, that border controls are not tough enough and must be strengthened further before anything else can be done.

On Wednesday, Obama will travel to Toluca, Mexico, for an economic summit at a time when his own immigration campaign, launched a year ago, has stalled in Congress amid another backlash over the border . White House officials said that Mexican President Enrique Pea Nieto has pledged to do all he can to help, and Obama predicted to Univision that immigration reform will still happen before he leaves office.

But the situation is largely out of Obamas hands, and the latest impasse has frustrated longtime advocates.

When you hear someone say the key to immigration reform is to secure the border, it tells me they either dont understand the issue or theyre just using it as a pretext, Carlos Gutierrez, Bushs former commerce secretary, said in an interview last week. If we secure the border and do not have reform or new a legal system, then the economy is really going to be in trouble.

It is a debate that has raged since President Reagan signed the last major overhaul of immigration laws in 1986, a bipartisan achievement hailed as a solution to the crisis of 5 million immigrants living in the country illegally. The Immigration Reform and Control Act put 2.7 million people on the path toward citizenship, marking the largest legalization program in U.S. history.

But in many ways, the law has been deemed a failure and stands as one of the chief impediments to a new round of reform. The bill denied legal status to more than 2 million others who had recently arrived in the country, and failed to create a guest worker program large enough to handle the surge of workers streaming across the border over the next two decades.

The number of people living in the country illegally rose again quickly, reaching more than 11.7 million last year.

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For more than 25 years, its never been the right time for immigration reform

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