The immigration deal announced in the US Senate last week poses an excruciating choice. Its architects seized a once-in-a-generation opportunity to overhaul a broken system and emerged with a deeply flawed compromise. They tried to bridge the chasm between hardliners who want the US to stop absorbing outsiders, and those who want to give immigrants — illegal ones, too — a fair shot. But the compromise was stretched so taut to contain these conflicting impulses that basic American values were uprooted, and sensible principles ignored.

The agreement fails dismally in its temporary worker programme. “Temporary means temporary” has been a Republican mantra, motivated by the thinly disguised impulse to limit the number of workers. The deal calls for the creation of a new underclass that could work for two years at a time, six at the most, but never put down roots. Immigrants who come under that system - who play by its rules, work hard and gain respect and job skills - should be allowed to stay if they wish. But this deal closes the door. If America treats immigrants according to the outlines of the deal, the change will come at too high a price: the repudiation of generations of immigration policy, the weakening of families and the creation of a system of modern peonage within US borders. — International Herald Tribune