Atlanta Journal Constitution
May 18, 2007

Colleagues heap praise on Isakson
By Bob Kemper

Washington --- There was an unusual amount of love going around Capitol Hill on Thursday when a bipartisan group of senators announced that they'd struck a deal on immigration reform, and quite a bit of it was heaped on GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia.

After weeks of tedious and often tense negotiations, Republican and Democratic senators produced a plan to control illegal immigration built around Isakson's proposal that the U.S.-Mexico border be secured before broader reforms, such as a temporary-worker program, begin.

Isakson's "triggers" concept --- under which reforms would be greenlighted as security goals are met --- was critical in getting conservatives to support the compromise that also included measures they opposed last year, including a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already living in the U.S.

"You gave us this pathway forward," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Isakson in a news conference packed with the happiest bipartisan group of senators seen on Capitol Hill in years.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a border-state presidential hopeful, also praised Isakson.

"Sen. Isakson, long ago, had a proposal that we had to take certain steps in order to make sure the American people know that our border enforcement is as complete as much as possible before we move forward with any other issues," McCain said. "I want to thank you, Sen. Isakson."

During debate last year on an immigration bill that foundered among partisan divides, Democrats rejected Isakson's plan, saying it may be impossible to completely seal the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border and that to tie reforms to such a goal would delay changes indefinitely.

But Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), the leading Democrat in this year's negotiations, tried to assuage such concerns. "The Isakson projections in terms of the triggers make sense," he said. "I think this is a strong bill."

There was also praise for Georgia's other senator, Republican Saxby Chambliss, former chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, who helped write a provision regulating the migration of farmworkers that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), as liberal as Chambliss is conservative, said would create "a consistent labor force for agriculture."

"The way you make good laws is to have people on both sides of the aisle come together in a bill that none of us would think would be perfect, but a bill that is perfect for the American people," Chambliss said. "And that's exactly what has happened here."

Isakson, looking humbled by all the attention, cautioned that Thursday's compromise was only the start of a "two-step process."

"The first step is: Cure the problem. Stop the insecurity on the border and stop the leak on the border," he said. "And let's return to respect America's dream of a legal immigration system that works."