Arlen Specter emerged from closed door meetings yesterday to pronounce on the Senate floor that a "grand bargain" on immigration was in the offing. But things still appear to be up in the air, because Majority Leader Reid has indicated he's not willing to allow any additional time for negotiations to see if the final details of a bill can be worked out.

Instead, Reid vowed to move ahead this week and bring an immigration bill to the floor, and if a new bill isn't ready in time Reid will bring back last year's bill. Specter told reporters yesterday Republicans are "disinclined" to go along with Reid's motion to proceed, raising the possibility of a filibuster. Reid defended his decision to move ahead, saying, "Anyone who thinks two months is not enough time to get ready should get another occupation."

Really? After we've just watch the Senate and the House lollygag their way through the Iraq war supplemental, it seems fairly disingenuous of Reid to hold immigration reform to some fast and hard schedule.

In a related story, the Arizona Republic reports that increased border security is playing less of a role in driving down the number of apprehensions than the economy:

It seems like a simple cause and effect. Six thousand National Guard soldiers descend on the U.S.-Mexican border and apprehensions of undocumented immigrants drop by 27 percent in a year.

But economists say look further.

The main factor driving down illegal immigration is a slowing economy, especially in the construction industry, which employs many undocumented workers, economists say. Security plays a lesser role. [snip]

April marked the 12th month in a row Border Patrol apprehensions fell. Since May 2006, when Bush announced he would station National Guard troops along the border, apprehensions have fallen 27 percent borderwide compared with the previous 12 months, according to Border Patrol data. In the Tucson Sector, the nation's busiest, apprehensions are down 24 percent. In the Yuma Sector, apprehensions are down 27 percent.

The decline over the past year marks the most precipitous drop since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Pia Orrenius, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. She studies the economic effects of migration.

An economic recession leading up to the attacks, followed by the Border Patrol going on high alert, sent apprehensions to their lowest point in a decade. Orrenius believes something similar is happening again. The most recent drop in apprehensions indicates that beefed-up border security is "certainly" having a deterrent effect. "But not as large as the economic effect," she said.

The article concludes with this:

McLaren, of ASU's W.P. Carey School of Business,said illegal immigrants rely heavily on networks to determine whether to cross or not. When the economy is good, word spreads south that jobs are available and employers are hiring, and vice versa.

When the economy is slow, increased enforcement exacerbates its effects, as crossing becomes tougher and more costly, she said. "It's now expensive to get across, so they are going to want to have a job before they come," McLaren said.

Of course economic laws of supply and demand are at work on the border, but isn't the idea, whether in a good economy or a bad economy, to make it "tougher and more costly" for people to cross our border illegally? The article downplays investments in border security nearly to the point of irrelevance, which I suppose was the paper's intent.