Senate leaders are reportedly close to reaching agreement on a compromise bill on immigration reform, a mere five years after the White House made such a measure a high priority.

A spokesman for Senator Kyl, a Republican of Arizona who has been working on the bill with Senator Kennedy, a Democrat of Massachusetts, suggested that negotiations are ongoing but that an agreement was likely in the next couple of days.

Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute says any proposed bill would presumably wend its way through Congress over the next several months. Her take on the negotiations is that “we are close to a historic deal, which will likely change for the first time in 40 years how immigrants gain access to our country. Since 1965 we have given out over 60% of visas to people who have legal relatives in the U.S. The proposed legislation will change that and now allocate a majority of visas on the basis of worker requirements.”

The bill under consideration is presumed to require tougher border control, greater enforcement against the hiring of illegals, a guest worker program, and a path to earned citizenship. Ms. Jacoby said she is concerned that future negotiations could lead to unrealistically low limits being put on the number of guest workers who can enter America each year, and failure to deal with the reality that a great number of such “temporary” workers in fact seek permanent status and will be tempted to stay.

“At the end of the day, when a deal emerges, everyone will have to assess whether the bill is a positive or a negative. I’m hoping the answer is that we as a country are better off,” Ms. Jacoby says.

At a forum hosted by the Manhattan Institute on Tuesday, Ms. Jacoby called immigration reform the “Sputnik issue of our era.” Although some may not agree with that assessment, there is no doubt that this has become a hot-button conversation. Why now? “There’s only one number you really need to know,” Ms. Jacoby says. “In 1960, half of all American men dropped out of school and ended up working in unskilled jobs. Today that figure is less than 10%. We need immigrants to fill jobs, and in fact about half the jobs created over the past decade have been filled by immigrants.”

In other words, continuing to host a large annual influx of workers is essential to the growth of the American economy. This view is not universally shared.

Immigration policy has no particular political center. The featured speaker at the forum Tuesday was Democrat Henry Cisneros, a former secretary of Housing and Urban Development and currently head of CityView, an outfit dedicated to the construction of high-quality affordable housing. In his remarks, Mr. Cisneros lauded President Bush’s proposed reform bill, saying: “The president has got it right. The three-part program focused on border security, recognition of guest workers, and the promise of earned citizenship is absolutely correct. You can quibble about the details, but it’s basically right.”

In the audience was a former congressman, Herman Badillo, who recently authored a book which takes aim at liberal policies regarding immigration. Lou Dobbs, self-appointed spokesman for all things liberal, rants about limiting immigration almost every night. That doesn’t sound very liberal.

That the immigrant population — both legal and illegal — is growing in number is undisputed. According to Ms. Jacoby, “There are 1.5 million immigrants coming to the U.S. each year. There are 35 million here now.” There also appears to be some consensus that this growing element of our society has not been adequately embraced by mainstream America, and that this presents problems of all kinds. In her view, “Both right and left have failed” to address this issue adequately.

The remarks by Mr. Cisneros, and the panel discussion that followed, dealt with the problem of assimilation, or what Mr. Cisneros prefers to describe as Americanization. He and others pointed out that immigrants today are not greeted, as earlier generations had been, by well organized political or religious networks. A great many immigrants are never brought into the American dialog, according to Mr. Cisneros, relegating them and their progeny to a permanent underclass.

Further, these new Americans are daily fed a withering view of American misdeeds by the press, and in our schools. Mr. Cisneros relates that he continually encounters new immigrants in the area of San Antonio where he lives. “These people don’t want to hear that the U.S. is wrong. They are looking for affirmation that they have made the right decision in coming here,” he said.

Although the conversation was general, there is no doubt that Latinos face the biggest assimilation hurdles, inspiring the involvement of Messrs. Cisneros and Badillo. According to Ms. Jacoby, Hispanic immigrants are especially problematic in that they tend to live in Spanish-speaking communities and therefore are less pressed to learn English. They are treated, and in fact often regard themselves, as only “temporary” Americans. Mr. Cisneros cited an impressive list of 121 major American companies that are today headed by immigrants. Only one of those was Latino.

Mr. Cisneros makes a convincing case for liberal immigration rules by citing the stagnating workforce of Japan, Germany, and other demographically challenged countries. Not only do those countries have aging populations, but in the case of Japan the population is actually shrinking. He related the concerns of Japanese officials who do not know how they will fund their health care system, or how they will populate their military.

Thanks in part to our large number of immigrants, the American population is expected to expand to around 410 million by 2050 from about 300 million as of last October. The biggest increase will come from Hispanics, who tend to have larger families and who are today a relatively young segment of the population.

Mr. Cisneros celebrates the long history of immigration in America, which included his parents. “I love this country,” he says. “The identity I most cherish is being an American.”

He cautions, though, that America “won’t remain strong if the next generation is relegated to a permanent underclass.”

Mr. Cisneros believes America should engage immigrants in a reciprocal agreement, the purpose of which is to bring newcomers into the mainstream. He would require that immigrants commit over 15 years to learn English, to become citizens, and to sign onto our financial system, which means opening a bank account or taking out a mortgage.

In return, society should keep an open door to allow immigrants to enter the middle class. If both sides complete this compact, Mr. Cisneros says, “It is my fervent belief that America’s best days lie ahead.”

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