As the U.S. Senate nears a compromise on immigration . . .

Think back to those voices who warned us about ``our'' country being transformed by people who would take jobs and never fit in -- not religiously, not in terms of skin color, and not in terms of language. (Because, of course, they would NEVER learn English.)

One such voice belonged to Benjamin Franklin. In 1751, he sounded a note much like that of Samuel Huntington about Hispanic immigration today. ``Why,'' he wrote,

``should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our anglifying them, and will never adopt our language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our complexion.’’

That's right: the wrong-color, wrong-customs, wrong-language, never-fit-in crowd that Franklin saw consisted of immigrants from Germany. Even in his lifetime, he had to backpeddle on that one. Plus ca change.