Everyone knows that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". But few know that even if it is broke, it still may not be wise to fix it. One could make matters worse. The well-meaning proponents of US immigration reform learnt this lesson the hard way: their efforts finally collapsed in the Senate on June 28 and the nation was left more polarised than ever. What went wrong?

Part of the problem lay in some gratuitous mistakes. Congress andthe Bush administration invited trouble by embracing euphemisms that both obfuscated the issuesand prompted slugfests that further poisoned the atmospherics. Thus,the politicians had to call illegal immigrants "undocumented" when,in fact, their illegality was whatreally mattered. Then, the amnesty that was offered had to be called a "legalisation" process. The politically correct politician was being asked to "legalise" those who could not be called illegals.