Democrats Reframe the Debate on Immigration -- First, secure the border.

From The New York Times:

The outline for an immigration overhaul unveiled by Democratic senators this week lays down a new starting point for any national debate: tough immigration enforcement. But perhaps more significantly it reveals how politics have shifted on the contentious issue.

The enforcement would be more far-reaching than anything in place now — or anything proposed by the administration of President George W. Bush.

It begins with “zero tolerance” for immigrants trying to enter the country illegally, by tightening border enforcement and by barring them from taking jobs in the United States.

“It shows how far the Democrats have moved in terms of tougher and tougher enforcement,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who studies immigration. “Across the board you see language that would be very comfortable in a proposal written by Republicans.”

The move to a more security-minded consensus comes as the Democrats and their leader in the Senate, Harry Reid of Nevada, face a challenging midterm election season.

Democrats have joined Republicans in seeking to avoid the mistakes of 1986, when the last major overhaul gave amnesty to more than three million illegal immigrants, but enforcement provisions were largely left out of the final legislation.