Posted on 06/16/2003 1:04:52 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Cornyn will outline a guest worker program today that would allow some undocumented immigrants to legally hold a job for up to three years while working toward full-time residency, according to a draft of the proposal.
Cornyn, a Republican from San Antonio, called the plan "a straightforward and effective guest worker program that will recognize the vital role hard-working immigrants play in our economy."
While cautioning that the measure remains a work in progress until he formally issues it as a bill soon, Cornyn said the proposal, which he plans to introduce in a speech before the Senate, also would address the issue of border security.
"We must bring our broken immigration system into the 21st century. We must move transient workers out of the shadows. We must ensure the security of our borders," he said, according to a draft of the speech obtained by the Houston Chronicle.
Supporters of guest worker plans are hopeful Cornyn's initiative could help millions of undocumented workers living in the United States emerge from an underworld status. But opponents are lined up, arguing that guest worker programs are thinly veiled amnesty grants for illegal immigrants.
"What you have is a rolling amnesty program (for immigrants) and amnesty for employers who are presently violating federal employment laws by hiring undocumented workers," said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that favors strict limits on immigration and better enforcement of immigration laws.
The plan Cornyn plans to pitch would give guest workers the same rights granted Americans under Labor Department laws and would set up Social Security and Medicare accounts drawn as taxes from workers' wages that will provide health care protections.
Workers can access contributions to those accounts after returning to their home country, and the funds would be transferred into the U.S. programs for workers attaining permanent residency. The program would be open to immigrants from many countries, not just Mexico as in some previous failed proposals.
President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox were exploring a worker agreement before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, heightened U.S. interests in border security and killed any momentum for immigration reform.
Under Cornyn's draft plan, seasonal workers could stay in the United States for nine months and non-seasonal workers for the full year, up to a total of 36 months. After three years in the program, a participant could apply for legal permanent resident status.
"This is not amnesty," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Cornyn. "It is not a guaranteed path to citizenship. After three years, this will be a factor taken into account. It won't get you to the head of the line, but it will help."
Illegal immigrants with the sponsorship of an American employer could apply under the program within a year of its passage, showing proof of U.S. residency by that date. Those workers would receive a photo identification card allowing them to cross the border legally.
The United States has guest worker programs already in place. One, for instance, admits temporary workers to provide farm labor during the height of a growing season if a supply of domestic workers can't be found, though the program accounts for a tiny percentage of all farm workers.
High-skill immigrants also can obtain work visas with the support of a U.S. employer. Nearly 200,000 immigrants applied for the permits last year.
But an operation on the scale that could result from Cornyn's proposal has not been attempted since the 22-year "bracero" program that brought an estimated 4 million Mexicans into southwest border states to work as farm laborers. The bracero program ended in 1964.
The Cornyn bill will be outlined in detail today and is expected to be formally introduced within a week.
Stewart said giving guest workers the protections afforded citizens under U.S. labor laws "would mean people would no longer have to be intimidated. It would be encouraging people to come out of the shadows." It would also enhance U.S. security, he said. "There are 10 million people living in this country who we don't know where they are or what they are doing."
The proposal comes one month after 19 undocumented immigrants died after being locked in a sweltering tractor trailer near Victoria. The case focused new attention on the dangers illegal immigrants are willing to face for U.S. jobs.
An estimated 7 million to 10 million illegal immigrants now live in the United States, with more than 1 million believed to be in Texas.
Under the Cornyn initiative, the number of guest workers established in any region of the country would be determined by the Labor Department, using input from employers, labor unions, U.S. unemployment data for that area and other factors. Employers looking to hire temporary guest workers must apply to the Labor Department describing the lack of workers in that area and the wages to be paid.
A Cornyn staffer conceded the bill likely would be attacked "from both the right and the left, for going too far or not far enough."
Former Sen. Phil Gramm, whose retirement last year cleared the way for Cornyn's election, late in his tenure promoted the idea of a limited guest worker program for Mexican immigrants. But the measure did not draw enough political support to see it to fruition.
The precise formulations to be contained in the bill remain unclear, but some immigration experts were supportive of its broad concepts while others said the proposal was likely to fail through fraud and abuse.
"From what I've heard, it seems like an attractive idea," said Nestor Rodriguez, co-director of the Center for Immigration Research at the University of Houston. "The key to whether people already here participate will be how much protection do workers have, and how much freedom of movement."
There are other legislative proposals, including a bipartisan bill in the House, that address guest worker programs, said Angela Kelley of the immigrant advocacy group National Immigration Forum.
"Different people are taking different cuts at this, and we find it encouraging that (lawmakers) are addressing the problem," she said.
Kelley said any successful guest worker program must create a clear path to becoming a permanent resident, allow workers to move from job to job and allow worker's rights, such as the ability to join a union.
But Ben Ferro, a former high-ranking official of the Immigration and Naturalization Service who now is an immigration consultant, said guest worker programs that incorporate illegal immigrants are a form of amnesty in disguise.
"Call it what you will, it is amnesty for people here illegally now," he said. "And if it is like past amnesty programs, it will be overwhelmed by fraud and abuse."
Ferro said a federal government analysis of a 1986 amnesty program found that more than 90 percent of those applying used fraudulent documents or made false statements.
Rodriguez said the argument that guest worker programs are thinly veiled amnesty programs misses the point.
"So what? The people are still here, and amnesty or not, they are going to stay here."
The stage has been set over many decades. How can the clock be turned back? It has to be dealt with. So many believe lifting the economic embargo against Castro is the way to bring democracy and freedom to Cubans but balk at the idea of lifting the embargo against Mexican workers crossing the U.S.-Mexican border.
3 posted on 06/16/2003 1:30 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
What the heck are you talking about? What stage? What do you mean turn back the clock? This is "OUR" nation. It isn't Mexico north. It isn't a new state in Mexico's future, at least it shouldn't be. We have the right, no the obligation to clamp down on border crossings. It's the law. We are being occupied by a foreign nation. IT HAS TO STOP. Our culture is being destroyed.
Since when is it 'bad logic' to demand that our nation enforce it's laws on the books? Are we a nation of laws or has that been ripped out from under us too? I thought this was a conservative forum. Conservatives are law and order people. We are not enforcing our laws and disorder is the result!
The people coming north have very little education. They are dirt poor. They have no savings and no way to support themselvest when they are here. They bring disease, ever expanding slums and burden our hospitals, schools, police departments and socials services. They increase our population exponentially. We simply do not have the infrastructure to hold them all. Our roads are crumpling, our society is breaking down. Our unemployed, our school kids, have to compete with them for jobs.
Here's a few key words and phrases that apply to this situation. Gangs, robery, homicide, rape, drive bys, grafitti, violence, jails, prisons, teenage pregnancy, unwanted infants, constant stories of infants in trash cans, drug or alcohol damaged infants, abortion, drugs, human smuggling, drug smuggling, failing schools, poverty rates, abuse of aliens, multiple families to single family dwellings, declining property values, regional deteriation...
As for balking at the idea of lifing the embargo against Mexican workers crossing the border of the United States, the open door policy has been nothing but a total complete and ever expanding disaster. It has created one giant region of expanding slums from near Riverside to Santa Monica, from parts of Anaheim to the norhtern end of San Fernando valley. We're talking of an area around 160 square miles in which parts are beginning to look more like Tijuana than the United States. No it's not all slums. Yes there are many places where it's simply barrio.
90% of all births to Los Angeles country run hospitals are to illegal aliens. 1/3rd of all Los Angeles Unified School District students are the children of illegals. Tens of millions of dollars are spent by nearly every hospital in southern California on illegal aliens each year who have no funds or insurance with which to pay. In the last twenty years these hospitals have had to trim their services in order to just keep their doors open. These services don't just effect the illegal. No, it's impacted healthcare delivery to every man woman and child whether you have insurance or not. You see, those who can pay have to pay for the ones who can't. Since we can't make up the difference, the hospitals have had to turn into WalMart to make it work. Our healthcare system is on the ropes out here.
I have never thought lifting the embargo would usher Castro out. It would simply make Castro's system more profitable, thus creating the impression he was right all along. No way would I agree to that. If the Cubans like the life he has given them, let them have it. If they don't, they should kick his rear out. BTW, changing the Cuban economy does not imply an open door policy to have Cubans immigrating here in mass. A better system in Cuba would lessen the flight to our nation.
I agree with your Cuba assessment.
Have to go but will return later with more response to your thoughtful post.
Obviously we need to take a new tact. An example: The president of Columbia is giving amnesty to FARC rebels (terrorists) if they haven't been involved in leadership roles and want to reenter civil society. It is working.
It would be better to document and tax people crossing the border from the south. A civil, open entry would be more desireable than the scurrying by night through cracks in the "fence." Terrorists won't be able to hide so easily and they will find less sympathy among others who can come legally, but with strings.
Over generations, families have come to find work. These families have strong ties with relatives in Mexico. I believe money sent back to Mexico is the second leading boon to that economy. Generations here have established roots and entered the fabric of America. We can't put on the brakes and put this in reverse. What is done, is done.
I've lived in Arizona and Texas and now I'm in the D.C. area. I live side by side with people who weren't born in the U.S. but made their way here for work and freedom. I feel like a minority. When I made a trip back to my home state of Wisconsin a few years back, I was shocked by all the blondes.
But this is the reality. We're all part of the recipe that makes up a melting pot. Some of my family came over four hundred years ago for religous freedom. Some came later to escape famine. But they all came for the same thing. To live and prosper. So in the end, I beleive if we stop driving immigrants into the arms of the Democratic Party, they will become our natural constituents.
The U.S. has always been a refuge for people who seek a place to work, educate their children and prosper in freedom. By acting against this we keep a thriving and sympathetic underground for socialists to add numbers to their side. Why do that? We need to find the best way to assimilate this new migration. In time Mexico will have to shed their failed socialist underpinnings and move toward our democratic model.
Particularly welfare enticements for those who come here illegally !!!
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