Posted on 12/04/2005 4:11:33 PM PST by Crackingham
President Bush's proposal for a guest worker program as a way of addressing illegal immigration is gaining support from Gov. Mitch Daniels, but doubts from officials with agencies that work with northwestern Indiana's growing immigrant population.
Bush's desire for a guest worker program has been stalled in Congress since he proposed it while running for re-election, although at least two competing bills would establish temporary worker visas. He made immigration the subject of his weekly radio address Saturday and addressed the issue during appearances in Arizona and Texas last week, saying it will top his legislative agenda next year.
"These people are here and are prepared to work hard," Daniels told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville. "We need to find a way to deal with those issues" that keep them from staying legally.
Adelina Torres of the Roman Catholic Office of Hispanic Ministries helps recent immigrants find jobs and services in the four-county Diocese of Gary. She doesn't ask her clients whether they're documented or not.
"We don't have to, and who's to say that some day (immigration officials) won't come in and say, 'Let me see what you got on this guy,'" she said.
Bush's proposal to give guest workers legal status for up to six years would help them, Torres said. Workers would not break the law, would pay more taxes, and would be able to move freely and integrate with society.
They also would be able to get out from under abusive employers and landlords without worrying about being deported, she said.
Torres and other advocates say northwest Indiana is home mainly to legal residents whose roots in the region go back to the 1920s, when steel companies' owners recruited Mexicans to work in the booming lakeshore steel mills. Over generations, that population has spread from urban Hammond, East Chicago and Gary into suburban and rural parts of the region.
Here I am!
Nope, they won't. THey won't remember crap.
Well, assuming I live that long, yes, I will remember how it came to be that Mexicans became the single largest voting block in this country, should that be the case.
Will the voters care that his parents aren't yet American citizens?
Will the voters care that his relatives who snuck across the border carrying illegal drugs for one of the cartels were never arrested, tried or jailed?
Will the voters care that America has sunk below the levels of expectation that our Founders had fought and died for?
Will the voters care?
To find the answers to those questions, you will have to ask them in Spanish, which brings up another question relevant to where we are now.
People who are for an unchecked illegal invasion often site the fact that we are a nation of immigrants, and that immigration in the past and the results of it show that there is no harm in it.
However, I think a valid point is that though we have in the past had large numbers of immigrants migrate here from all over the world (as did some of my German ancestors back in the mid 1800's), and still do, I notice that we don't have the option to press 3 for German, 4 for Chinese, or any other number to access a foreign language today other then Spanish.
This is a cogent point. Previous immigrants assimilated to us. Today, concerning our southern invaders, we are assimilating to them.
Press 2 for espanol? Hello? This is an illegal invasion, not immigration like we've known in the past.
Tancredo's plan requires that also. Does anyone know what any of the essential differences are between the two plans?
I'm just saying that I'm OK with a guest worker plan, as long as applicants must apply from their home country.
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