Kudos to tribe for looking into program for guest workers

While the effort may raise more questions than it answers, we still admire the initiative of a former Yakama Tribal Council member to try to deal with the problem of illegal immigration in Central Washington.

Wendell Hannigan hopes to establish a Yakama Nation guest-worker program that would require licenses or permits for nontribal members and non-U.S. citizens working on reservation lands.

The tribal council recently approved his guest-worker program and now he plans to talk to growers in hopes of getting them to cooperate.

In concept, the idea appears to have merit. Growers leasing tribal land or farming their own land could voluntarily comply with his program by submitting guest-worker information that would be compiled into a computer database.

The question becomes one of jurisdiction and coordination. For one thing, there already is a federal program, known as H2A, in which employers work with five different federal agencies to get foreign workers here if the local labor supply is insufficient. That program also includes a requirement for transportation and housing costs for guest workers and paying them a minimum wage nearly $2 an hour higher than the state's minimum wage of $8.07 an hour.

How that complex program would dovetail with a tribal program remains to be seen.

And there's the issue of jurisdiction. Immigration control is a responsibility of the federal government and there are concerns as to how this apparently unprecedented tribal effort would fit, or even if it can. The Yakama reservation is a checkerboard of tribal and nontribal land ownership, also raising the question of how far tribal jurisdiction could extend within the exterior boundaries of the reservation on nontribal land.

And finally, in our view, we see a guest-worker program as only part of the equation in achieving comprehensive immigration reform. Such reform must also include securing the southern border, providing a path to citizenship and/or legal residency the right way for those now in the country illegally AND a creative workable guest-worker program.

That's why all-inclusive congressional efforts are a much more effective way of dealing with the problem. And we expect our local congressional delegation -- most notably 4th District Congressman Doc Hastings -- to be on point, leading the charge. So far we've been disappointed on that front.

So, while the tribal effort bears a lot of scrutiny, we do applaud the fact tribal leaders are willing to try to tackle a problem that has become so politicized and polarized that it will take a new Congress -- and the new president -- to deal with it, starting in January.

Failure to enact reforms is a national embarrassment.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins, Bill Lee and Karen Troianello.