The Kerik Opportunity

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

One thing that needs to be said in respect of the withdrawal of Bernard Kerik as President Bush’s nominee for homeland security director is that when any law goes so widely disregarded as the one against hiring illegal immigrants, it is time to have a hard look at the law and see whether to revise it. Mr. Kerik, a former police commissioner of New York, apparently hired an illegal immigrant as household help. As homeland security chief, he would have been responsible for enforcing America’s immigration laws. It’s not as if Mr. Kerik was the first nominee to be tripped up over such an issue – at least one Clinton nominee, Zoe Baird, had similar trouble.


President Bush campaigned for re-election on the idea of changing immigration laws to make it easier to match willing immigrant workers with employers. The current levels allowed for legal immigration are absurdly low, and millions of workers have sneaked across the border rather than deal with long waiting lists and chancy lotteries. The immigration law is so often disregarded that it erodes respect for the rule of law. Mr. Kerik will have done the nation a service if his embarrassment increases the pressure in Washington to change the untenably low levels of legal immigration to America that make household help so hard to find even for well-off former commissioners of the police.

NY Sun
NEW YORK SUN CONTRIBUTOR

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.


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