Talking Tough--or Talking Rough : Riordan rises above partisanship in discussing immigration

Is it too much to ask everyone to handle the raw-edge immigration issue with some care?

Guess so.

The latest effluvium in the rapidly deteriorating political debate over what to do about illegal immigration came from Gov. Pete Wilson and state Democratic Party political director Bob Mulholland.

Neither man distinguished himself in the exchange.

The governor told Democrats who don’t like his recently articulated immigration-crackdown proposals to “kiss my rear end if they can leap that high.”

Oh, my.

Is that the elevated language preferred of the state’s chief executive?

Well, Mulholland doesn’t hold high office--and he’s one Democrat who doesn’t like the governor’s notions on immigration and who helped launch partisan TV ads attacking him. He responded to Wilson’s gibe by calling attention to the governor’s 5-foot-8 height. Politics is politics, but that hardly advanced the debate.

It seems to us that it has been a while since California politics has fallen to this depth. Is it really the low road that the state wants to take in these tense and difficult times?

The unseemly exchange did have one side benefit. It served to remind us of some significant comments on the difficult immigration issue made earlier in the week by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who, like us, is certainly no fan of illegal immigration. His remarks were forthright, intelligent and sensitive.

To an audience of community leaders at Stephen S. Wise Temple on Los Angeles’ Westside, Riordan castigated (rightly) the federal government for failing to help California pay for the services needed because of all the immigration here, illegal and legal. And he blasted Washington (rightly) for not doing enough to stem illegal immigration.

But as for the proposal of Wilson and others that would deny education and health care to those who are not U.S. citizens, including children, Riordan strongly disagreed (as do we): “They’re human beings. I don’t care if they’re legal or illegal.”

What was most telling, it seems to us, was that the mayor passed up an easy opportunity to score an anti-immigrant haymaker. After all, bashing immigrants seems the political sport these days.

But can’t we all get sensible? Even if repealing the 14th Amendment and denying native-born children of illegal immigrants automatic citizenship were the right thing to do--and it assuredly is not--it would take years of effort and require jumping over political mountains to so alter the Constitution.

And denying health care to sick people who are here illegally is no answer; in fact, it’s a prescription for a communicable-disease disaster.

Keep kids of illegal immigrants out of public schools? Even if one has a very hard heart indeed, it’s not so difficult to believe that it’s better to educate kids than deny them any chance in life.

That’s why we like Riordan’s gut remark: “They’re human beings.”