Mike Pence’s Amnesty-Lite Plan

Attention, pro-enforcement readers. Today you will read and hear that George Bush is considering a “compromise” on amnesty-for-illegal-aliens. He may be willing to relinquish his version of the plan for one put forth by Congressman Mike Pence. But it’s much ado about very little.

I’ve heard all good things about Pence. Last month when I read Pat Buchanan’s criticism of his plan, The stealth amnesty of Rep. Mike Pence, and I was a bit dismayed. With Pence. Then I put it out of my mind. But now it’s time to think about it. The following portion of the plan is why Bush is considering it:

Emphasis added. In other words, he proposes that illegal aliens high-tail it back to Mexico for a week or so, with the assurance that they can return, and register for work permits.

Problem #1: Pence is assuming too much. Such ideas may sound reasonable to a handful of illegal aliens, but I doubt the majority would voluntarily return to Mexico or wherever they came from. Pence fails to consider the culture. Aliens prone to sucking up welfare and burdening the health care system, raping children, driving drunk, and fighting territorial wars will not “self-deport.” Just a hunch.

Problem #2: Good grief! Can you imagine the amount of red tape this would generate? There are law-abiding folks waiting in line (some for years) to get visas and/or to become citizens. The current immigration process is in need of drastic reform. It’s rife with bureaucratic incompetence and scandalously wide-open to national security breaches. I wrote about this in my latest Washington Examiner column. (The editor says it was the fourth most popular article in yesterday’s edition.)

Those two flaws taint the whole thing, and if I had time to keep digging, I’m sure I’d find more. Buchanan’s suggestions for dealing with the flow of illegal aliens are echoed by plenty of pro-enforcement Americans, including me:

The fair and legal approach would be to send illegal aliens back to their countries of origin and suggest they get in line for guest worker visas. Divert some of the funds that go to social services to immigration law enforcement — put thousands of agents on the borders (north and south), authorize local jurisdictions to arrest and detain illegal aliens, and slowly but surely deport them. It may take 20 years, but so what?

Bush has decreed “That ain’t gonna work.” To expect my president to consistently execute the law (dream on), something he’s publicly said he will not do, makes me feel like a wide-eyed, naïve, sixth-grader. And that’s a shame.

Transcript of Pence's press conference with White House reporters following Oval Office meeting with President, VP

Here is a transcript of the press conference Rep. Pence held with White House reporters following his Oval Office meeting with President Bush on Wednesday:

PENCE: I'm Congressman Mike Pence, and I'm chairman of the House Republican Study Committee. I represent the Sixth District of Indiana. I just came from a meeting in the Oval Office with the president and with Vice President Cheney. We met for about 40 minutes on the subject of immigration reform. The president invited me over last week to talk about a proposal that I offered in a speech to Heritage Foundation a month ago that would essentially put border security first, have the secretary of homeland security certify the borders within the end of two years and then, at that time, we would create a private sector-based system of what I call Ellis Island centers outside the United States of America where people who are in this country illegally could leave the country briefly, have a background check, their employment confirmed, and a health screening and return to the United States under the color of the law. I call it a no-amnesty guest worker program. And the president listened intently. He told me that he was intrigued with my proposal. And he said he found it interesting. And what was perhaps most meaningful to me was the president expressed his appreciation for my willingness to step forward on this issue and to bring a new idea into this critical national debate.

QUESTION: Did he indicate to you at all that he was willing to maybe adjust his plan at all?

PENCE: Well, I think I'd leave that for you to ask the president. But I will tell you that I was expecting about 15 minutes with the president; it went about 40 minutes. And he peppered me with very detailed questions about the policy and the proposal and the workability of it. And as I said, he said he was very intrigued by it and he thought it was an interesting idea to ask the free enterprise system, the private sector, to create these Ellis Island centers outside the United States of America. And I would leave it at that. But I left with the undeniable impression that the president of the United States thought our proposal was worth considering. Anyone else?

QUESTION: Last night, Chris Cannon won his primary out in -- wherever he was.

PENCE: Utah.

QUESTION: Utah. Thank you very much. And he bashed the president's proposal. What does this mean for the immigration debate, do you think?

PENCE: Well, I think that, first off, I did take the opportunity to thank the president and the first lady for campaigning for our colleague, Chris Cannon. Chris Cannon not only won a decisive victory in the Utah primary, but he won a decisive victory in a low turn-out primary, which should give some indication that those of us who are calling for tough border security measures in some kind of a comprehensive bill can know that we're standing on a sure foundation of support among Republican voters. Chris Cannon and I have spoken about my proposal. I won't characterize his view of it, but he's expressed enthusiasm for many of the ideas that I've promoted. And interestingly, from my perspective, his opponent in that primary, when asked what his position was on illegal immigration, said that he was somewhere between the position of Mike Pence and Tom Tancredo. His opponent, Mr. Cannon's opponent, actually advocated what he called a fast pass that would ask illegal immigrants to leave the country briefly, much in the some way my proposal would work. And so, those of us who believe that the American people want us to solve this problem, but want us to solve it in a principled way, without amnesty, think that Chris Cannon's victory yesterday was a very important step toward resolving this problem for the American people.

QUESTION: Congressman, did you speak about any of the other immigration issues with the president? Did you talk to him about the delay that the House now has on immigration? Is the president disappointed with that or support for that?

PENCE: We talked a little bit about some of the dynamics in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. The president was very curious about conversations that I was having with colleagues in both chambers. I informed him that I had sit-down meetings with Senator McCain, with Senator Kennedy, with Senator Kyl and Senator Cornyn as well as the leadership in the House. And he was appropriately curious about the feedback that I was getting. And I told him that while none of those people had endorsed my proposal, by a far stretch, all of them were interested, and those conversations on our no-amnesty guest worker program are ongoing.

QUESTION: But, getting off your proposal, how concerned is the president about the delay that the House has put forward in considering immigration legislation? He's really asked for it as soon as possible.

PENCE: He seemed in an awfully good mood about immigration reform in the Oval Office today. I found him to be optimistic, positive. I think he is very confident that the American people want some form of a comprehensive solution. And he showed me nothing today other than a confidence that we would solve this problem in a principled way for the American people. And quite honestly, he expressed, rather repeatedly, his appreciation for my willingness to step forward with a new idea of a way we might be able to move this legislation without amnesty.

QUESTION: Do you think it should be considered before the November election? September, October, at best?

PENCE: I think it should be considered without regard to politics. I think there are, in every generation of America, there is an issue or two that rises above politics. And I believe this is an issue that has captured both the anxiety and the imagination of the American people. And I think it would be a grievous error for the House of Representatives to pass the amnesty bill the Senate adopted, but I also think that millions of Americans will be disappointed if we don't find a principled way to secure our border and to meet the needs of our economy without amnesty in the very near future.

QUESTION: Why is it still amnesty when people have to pay a fine, get back in the line? The point that the White House makes is that it's not amnesty because it's basically a punishment and amnesty is a get-out-of-jail-free card.

PENCE: Well, part of my emphasis today with the president was to try and explain to him -- and the vice president, who was also in the meeting -- how I and other House conservatives, and I think millions of Americans, define amnesty. And it's very simply this: that if you can get right with the law by simply paying a fine or paying back taxes, that's amnesty. If you return home and apply for the legal right to be in the United States of America, that doesn't involve amnesty because you're applying for that visa outside the United States of America. I really believe that most House Republicans and, frankly, most Americans view allowing an individual whose first act in this country was a violation of law to get right with the law without going home is amnesty. But the only reason -- the new idea in the Pence plan is that we can reasonably ask people to make a short trip home because we're creating a whole new system of private placement centers that we call Ellis Island centers that would in an orderly way over a three-year period of time be able to process 10 million to 12 million people and return them to our workforce.

QUESTION: Did the president reject the notion that what he's proposing is amnesty?

PENCE: Well, he wasn't shy about expressing his opinion on anything. But I want to emphasize the meeting was very cordial. He repeatedly said he was intrigued by my proposal. He listened very intently at how I and other House Republicans define amnesty. He defended his definition. But he was -- I found it a very engaging conversation. I found the president -- I found him very intent on listening to new ideas.

QUESTION: Were you expecting the vice president to be there? And what did you make out of the fact that the president brought him in on the conversation?

PENCE: Well, I was not expecting the vice president to be there up until yesterday. The White House informed me that what was to be a meeting with the president in the Oval Office would also include the vice president. And I took it as a great honor, but also as some evidence of the administration's genuine desire to look at every idea that's out there.

QUESTION: But nothing close to an endorsement or support for your idea?

PENCE: No, sir. I want to be very emphatic with all of you: There was no endorsement. The president, though, did say rather repeatedly that he thought my idea was interesting and he found it personally intriguing, the idea of using the private sector to construct a new system of private placement firms outside the United States.

QUESTION: I just want to recall, he initiated this meeting. He reached out to you.

PENCE: Yes, sir.

QUESTION: Said, Let's come over and let's talk about this.

PENCE: The president invited me to the White House.

QUESTION: Just to be clear, you think that not only the Senate bill but what the president is proposing is also amnesty, is that correct?

PENCE: I think the aspect of the president's public remarks that would permit an individual to pay a fine or to pay back taxes and to remain in the United States and get right with the law is amnesty. And that's an honest difference of opinion and semantics. But what I was here to share really was just the view of a House conservative, to say, Here's a guest worker bill that I am prepared to support that is a no-amnesty guest worker bill. And I believe, with some exceptions, that many House Republicans and many House conservatives would be willing to support a comprehensive bill with a guest worker program so long as it required illegal immigrants to return home to make application to participate.

QUESTION: Do you specifically ever support some people for this, what you propose? Do you have like...

PENCE: We do. I was able to share with the president that, while my proposal has its critics, I've been very humbled by the likes of Paul Wyrick and Newt Gingrich, David Keene of the American Conservative Union, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal. Other well- known thought leaders and commentators in the conservative movement have spoken favorably about our bill, seen it as an acceptable compromise. And that's been very encouraging to me. The president, he did say repeatedly, and I want to say he achieved his mission in this, he was rather insistent on hoping that I left the meeting encouraged. He repeatedly thanked me for being willing to come forward. And he reiterated, I hope you're encouraged by this meeting. And having never been in the Oval Office, this grandson of an Irish immigrant was able to tell the president of the United States that I was encouraged.

QUESTION: Have you got (inaudible) on this thing (inaudible)

PENCE: We've gotten a very good response from many colleagues. I haven't yet dropped the bill. I've had a number of colleagues say they're interested in cosponsoring legislation when we move it, but we're not actually in that process yet. We're trying to really float an idea for a no-amnesty guest worker bill that would put border security first and only for the first two years. And the response has been very encouraging. Thank you all.

Mikepence.house.gov

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