Arkansas native and former White House chief of staff Mack McLarty and former Florida governor Jeb Bush along with Edward Alden have penned an op-ed in today’s Los Angeles Times advocating a bipartisan blueprint for immigration reform. Mr. McLarty and Mr. Bush are co-chairmen of a Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy. Mr. Alden is a director with that group.

They write,

Congress and the Obama administration should move ahead on three fronts: reform the legal immigration system so that it responds more adroitly to labor market needs and enhances U.S. competitiveness; restore the integrity of immigration laws through more effective enforcement, especially at the workplace; and offer a fair and orderly way to allow many of those currently living here illegally to earn the right to remain legally.

There are two objections to pushing ahead with such measures now. First, with a deep recession and unemployment nearing 10%, encouraging more immigration seems to make little sense at the moment. That is why the U.S. needs a more flexible system that is responsive to changes in the economy. Family reunification remains a basic and valuable goal, but employment-based immigration and temporary-worker programs should be allowed to fluctuate with economic cycles, rather than being subject to rigid quotas. That means numbers should go up when the economy grows but fall during recessions.

Second, some argue that this formula repeats the mistake of the 1986 reform law, which did nothing to stop illegal immigration. But the circumstances now are very different. In 1990, the U.S. had fewer than 3,000 Border Patrol agents. Today, there are almost 20,000 agents, a near doubling in the last four years alone. The Department of Homeland Security is also investing heavily in surveillance and other technologies to increase control over the borders.