Here's the basics of Bush's plan. Read it over.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040107-1.html
The guest worker program is intended to benefit our country by allowing immigrants from Mexico to come here legally if an employer who has made every reasonable attempt to hire an American employee to fill the job openings in unable to do so.
This is combined with continued increases to beefing up our border security.
However, beefing up our border security doesn't address the 12 million illegal immigrants already here.
Rather than spending the resources to forcibly remove those people, the plan allows those already here at it's inception to apply to join the guest worker program, which gives them the chance to stay and work legally if they qualify. That's the amnesty light part.
It also allows employers to take advantage of the trained workforce that's already here.
It's definitely generous to a great number of immigrants who are here illegally.
It also something that may very well allow immigration reform to actually get enough support to get through congress.
What does it really hurt to allow people to stay that would be eligible to come back if they just returned home first.
The plan does recognize that such an approach does encourage continued illegal immigration, so after the plan gets started up, immigrants would only be able to apply from outside the US.
It ignores past violations of immigration law if the person falls under the requirements of the guest worker program, but does not continue to do so after it's inception.
You can consider that working for the illegal immigrant lobby, or you can consider that simply trying to avoid the problems involved with deporting people who aren't a threat to the US, and are productive people.
The plan comes nowhere near allowing unlimited immigration.
...who aren't a threat to the US, and are productive people. The issue the party, the politicians, the media, and the unpatriotic landowners refuse to acknowledge is culture.
How many illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and anchor baby "citizens" can now refuse to learn English because the rest of us have been forced to finance their unassimilated existence?
How many medical bills, in the millions and millions of dollars, will citizens continue to pay?
How much worse will crime get in LA?
How many socialist votes can we expect in the future from this emerging bloc?
Who has the ear of this emerging bloc?
How many gangs will continue to spring up from this migration?
People who refuse to recognize the damage already done to our social fabric by encouraging this migration are part of the problem. Until we make it clear that it's important for leaders to reverse the damage, it will just continue to get worse.
If it's not already too late, it will be soon.
And by the way, one of the most important factors in the arrival and toleration of the 19 terrorists who invaded our country was illegal immigration. Yet that was downplayed by the media and even the so-called "victim" families that profit from their position in the public eye.
And it's all for cheaper lettuce or similar corner cutting.