Posted on 01/08/2004 8:03:21 AM PST by PhiKapMom
The Bush proposal
Linda Chavez
January 8, 2004
President Bush announced a sweeping new immigration reform proposal this week that could become a hot-button issue in the November election. For months, insiders have hinted that the president would propose a new guest worker program aimed at allowing more foreign workers into the country on a temporary basis. Widely favored by the American business community, a guest worker program would allow employers to fill jobs in industries that routinely experience shortages of workers willing to do the often difficult, dangerous jobs Americans shun -- at least at wages that allow employers to remain in business.
But the guest worker provisions won't be the most controversial part of the administration's new proposal. Although some groups that want to limit immigration altogether -- such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) -- oppose guest worker plans, even such staunch restrictionists as Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) are on record supporting the idea of guest workers. The real battle will be over what to do with those millions of illegal aliens who are already here.
Some 8-12 million illegal aliens reside in the United States now -- up three- or four-fold from a decade ago. An estimated 60 percent of these are from Mexico alone, and it is no accident that the Bush plan was announced in anticipation of the president's meeting with his Mexican counterpart, President Vicente Fox, next week. The White House announced less than a week before the Fox meeting that millions of illegal aliens from Mexico and elsewhere will be allowed, over time, to earn legal status in the U.S., so long as they have been working continuously, paid taxes and not broken other laws. The plan will impose some penalties on these workers -- most likely fines similar to those proposed in legislation sponsored by Republican Representatives Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe and Senator John McCain, all from Arizona.
These proposals may not offer perfect justice -- who can blame those who resent rewarding "line jumpers" with legal status while millions of other would-be immigrants wait patiently to enter the country legally. But "earned legalization" is probably the best solution to a largely intractable problem. There is no way that the United States can find and deport 8-12 million illegal aliens in this country, and even if we could, we would do more harm than good.
The American economy depends on these workers, who, along with legal immigrants, contributed significantly to the economic boon of the 1990s. If FAIR could wave a magic wand and make these illegal aliens disappear overnight, the rest of us would suffer by having to pay more for everything from the food we put on the table to the houses in which we live. Our office buildings wouldn't get cleaned, our crops wouldn't get picked, our meat wouldn't get processed, nor our tables cleaned when we go out to eat.
Sure, we could double wages to attract American-born workers to some of these jobs, but at even twice the salary it would be difficult to fill the nastiest of these tasks, like processing poultry. But why would we want American workers, who we've spent trillions of dollars educating for 13 or 14 years, on average, to perform jobs that require only the most minimal skills? Even if we got rid of all illegal aliens in the U.S., these jobs would likely go to foreign workers, like it or not.
What sense does it make to insist that we get rid of the very people doing these jobs now in order to make way for other foreign workers to take them under a new guest worker plan? It makes a lot more sense to figure out how to get those illegal aliens already employed at these jobs to come in from the shadows and become part of the legal system. They should pay a penalty for having broken the law in the first place by sneaking into the country or overstaying their visas, but it is better for all of us if they earn their way toward legal status than remain in the illegal netherworld where they now hide.
Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Townhall.com member organization.
Rush is on a roll again today regarding this matter. Bump for Rush, too.
Translation: We just don't want to deal with it.
What makes you think they will go home if they don't find a job in the formal economy? They'll simply drop under the radar screen and work in the informal economy, just as they are doing now.
And don't tell me because they're registered it'll be easy to round them up and deport them. We being told we must accept this "solution" because rounding up and deporting that many people is not possible.
UH the jobs are now done illegally and therefore are destroyed. I fail to see how enforcement by the govt vs employers who break the law is big brother. We enforce all kinds of laws on employers but turn a blind eye to illegals. You are being rather selective in what is big brother and what is not. Especially when you consider that the guest worker program will have to offend you big brother sensibilities in order for it to be enforced and to a greater degree.
Remember, not only Mexicans are crossing the border, but Arabs and people from all over the world have been found there in sweeps by the INS. And Mexico seems to be doing little or nothing about this issue, which seriously threatens our security.
Give Mexico a legal way to keep this income flow - but at the cost of seriously working on border enforcement from their side.
Covered under the Tancredo version of the bill:
`(3) The alien spouse and children of such a nonimmigrant may not, under section 101(a)(15)(H), accompany or follow to join the nonimmigrant.'.As long as families are coming here together, there will be a lot more children born to these people in the US. That means a huge influx in new citizens (most of whose parents will not have had the means to pay for OB services, which the taxpayers will have to absorb). There are already laws on the books, I can't quote them, that allow parents of children born in the states to stay here.
Again, covered under the Tancredo version...
SPECIAL RULE ON CITIZENSHIP AT BIRTH FOR CHILDREN OF H NONIMMIGRANTS- Notwithstanding title III of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1401 et seq.), or any other law, a child born in the United States to a parent who is a nonimmigrant described in section 101(a)(15)(H) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (as amended by section 210 of this Act) shall not be a national or citizen of the United States at birth unless the other parent is a citizen of the United States or an alien lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence.C'mon people...get a grip, Bush clearly stated that it would be up to Congress to put together the details.) REQUIRED PROVISION OF HEALTH INSURANCE- An employer of a nonimmigrant described in section 101(a)(15)(H) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (as amended by section 210 of this Act) shall provide such nonimmigrant with health insurance that meets existing minimum Federal and State requirements, as applicable.
And guess what?
None of that will happen
What will happen is that the 10-15 million here now will stay, bringing even more dependents and having anchor babies
The costs of governemtn programs for these people will be astronomical.
Many millions of new illegals will come into the US since Bush has signaled that the US border will no longer be enforced and the new illegals can expect to get amnesty themselves in the future.
Blue collar wages will continue to drop, social disorder will rise and Atzlan will begin to take shape.
Tackle hard problems head on? He's not tackling this problem head on -- he's CAVING.
How do you identify them? You don't have to spend billions for a police army to check the papers of very Hispanic-appearing person. You encourage them to self-identify. The key is to adopt a system that gives disincentives to illegal aliens for being here, combined with incentives for their returning to and staying in their own countries. As you increase these measures at both ends, the flood slows, the current reverses, and they start going home on their own.
Disincentives can be as nominal as actually enforcing existing laws and aggressively deporting illegal aliens when they are found. But we really need to crank up the pressure on the businesses and entities that employ them. Make it so costly to such scofflaws that they hesitate or refuse to hire illegals.
Pass laws--constitutional amendments if necessary--to deny illegal aliens the benefits of social welfare (beyond short-term emergency care).
At the same time, do not dry up the legal immigration spigot. On the contrary, make it a little easier to immigrate legally. Make the process more efficient. Make it more fair (the family-based system in current use favors Asians and Hispanics over other ethnic groups).
Bush must also push Fox very hard to clean up his own sty and make Mexico a place of freedom and opportunity for the citizens who are now fleeing it.
What Bush is proposing is an abomination, a system of legalized quasi-indentured servitude of three to six year terms whereby the darkies are kept on Plantation America to do the scut labor the elites allegedly won't do--an intolerable and unstable state of affairs that will not be allowed long to continue by courts reviewing the situation. When the system collapses, it will collapse in the direction of full citizenship and amnesty for all 9 to 15 million illegal aliens and their families. If we don't want to end up at that destination, we had better not start down that road.
Not all janitors, field workers or meat packers are illegal aliens. I don't know where the people that believe this get their information but the above jobs are being done all over this country without illegal alien labor.
Dan Stein of FAIR made a very good point on this issue during an interview on C-SPAN this AM.
If illegals are using false identification now, and have their origin in other countries, how can the feds ever be sure that the new ID cards are being issued to a real identity?
What's to stop the fake ID game from continuing
Answer:nothing
It's a farce
Bullcrap. This very doable. Just give them 90 days notice to leave or else cars, houses, bank accounts will be seized. Make them pay for their own departure. Shut down all money transmission services to Mexico and Central America. At most we need 2 million illegal aliens to do the worst jobs. Others are just depressing the wage level and stealing jobs from Americans. Many illegals just make Hispanic communities larger and don't make the US economy better. Just the barrio's economy larger.
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