McCain Reengages Immigration Debate

UNION CITY, Calif. -- This morning's event was called a "roundtable" discussion, but the table John McCain sat at was actually shaped like the wings of a B-2 Bomber--two rectangles jutting out at an obtuse angle. As promised, however, there was a lot of give and take between McCain and his fellow panelists, which included a star-studded lineups of California entrepreneurs and politicians, people like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, Cisco CEO John Chambers, and five other high-tech leaders.

Talk quickly turned to immigration, and particularly the challenge of attracting and retaining highly-educated immigrants through a visa program known as H-1B. In this context, some of McCain's comments were notable:

Senator Kennedy and I tried very hard to get immigration reform, a comprehensive plan through Congress. And it is a federal responsibility. Because of our failure to federalize the issue, we are now seeing these varius conflicts and problems throughout our nation, and different towns, cities and counties, whatever they are, impliment different policies…. I just want to assure you that I believe we have to secure our borders, and I think most Americans agree with that, because it is a matter of national security. But we must enact comprehensive immigration reform, and we must make it a top agenda item.

McCain said he was talking of loosening legal immigration restrictions not just for highly skilled workers, but also a temporary program to provide visas for agricultural workers. He also said there needed to be an "orderly way" for people to apply for citizenship. "Those people, once we have that [the orderly way to apply for citizenship], who hire people illegally, who break the law, should be prosecuted," he said.

Just a few weeks back, McCain made similar comments about "comprehensive immigration reform." The phrase points to a gradual shift in his rhetoric about immigration reform, away from the "secure the borders first" frame that he used for much of the Republican primary. After the comprehensive immigration reform bill that McCain supported died in Congress last summer, McCain mostly stopped speaking of "comprehensive" reform on the trail, which he said did not have the votes to pass. Instead, he spoke of a bifurcated legislative solution, which effectively split the "comprehensive" bill into two parts. The first part would deal with securing the border. The second part would deal with providing a path to citizenship for those illegal immigrants already in the country, and a revised immigration process.

His comments Thursday did not repudiate that bifurcated plan. But his discussion of the need for a "comprehensive" solution clearly signaled that the Republican primaries are over. In California, where McCain expects to be vying for the Latino vote in the general election, he was delivering a general election message.