President Bush yesterday ruled out granting "blanket amnesty" to as many as 12 million immigrants illegally in the United States, but said he supports a policy that benefits American business owners and immigrant job seekers.I haven't seen any articles where they talk about more border patrol agents, have you?"We need to have an immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee," Mr. Bush said in a news conference yesterday.
"It makes sense that that policy go forward. And we're in the process of working that through now so I can make a recommendation to the Congress," said Mr. Bush about the politically dicey issue — made more urgent by his planned attendance at the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, next month.
But the president reiterated a stance he has enunciated often: "This administration is firmly against blanket amnesty." < snip >
The last major legalization program in 1986, when more than 2 million illegal immigrants were granted blanket amnesty, was a failure. The move did not stem illegal immigration, but instead created an avenue for millions of new immigrants to legally enter the country to visit newly legal relatives. Many illegally overstayed their temporary visas. With that lesson in mind, top Republican lawmakers are proposing legislation that would impose a $1,500 fine on illegal immigrants before they were granted legal residency in the United States. Those illegal entrants also would have to line up behind workers who entered the United States under a guest-worker program as they sought legal residency.
Bush Rules Out Blanket Amnesty
Then you did not look very hard, from Fox News:
May 15, 2002 - Hoping to beef up border security, President Bush signed legislation Tuesday that he said will prevent terrorists, drugs and illegal immigrants from entering the country but does not restrict the flow of commerce and tourism.The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act calls for the development of machine-readable, tamper-proof passports and requires foreign visitors to carry documents that use biometric technology, like fingerprint and retina scans. Bush said the measure will not only help keep out people who don't belong in this country, it will help keep track of visitors while they are here.
The bill provides the authority to hire 400 more Immigration and Naturalization investigators and inspectors processing the 500 million people that cross U.S. borders each year. The bill hikes the pay of border patrol agents and creates a database of suspected terrorists that would be accessible at every entry point, and against which every person entering the country would be checked.
The bill also bans the issuance of visas to people from countries considered to be sponsors of terrorism, unless a special finding is made that the individual is no threat to this country.
The bill has some new rules for colleges and universities, requiring them to make sure foreign students are complying with the terms of their visas, and to report if the students stop showing up for class. Universities had been authorized to provide the information before, though enforcement was limited, but now with an online system, the information should be easier to input and access.
The student visa rule, which also makes sure students are enrolled in a university before the visa is granted, was proposed after the Sept. 11 terrorist investigation revealed that several of the hijackers who slammed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field were in the United States on student visas but were not attending classes.
The 2002 Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act includes a provision that would increase the pay level of Border Patrol agents and immigration inspectors. The bill would raise their basic pay from the GS-9 to GS-11 level.
The Bush administration’s proposed fiscal 2003 budget calls for hiring another 570 Border Patrol agents and 1,150 immigration inspectors next year. The INS currently is hiring immigration inspectors and Border Patrol agents, and has received thousands of applications for the positions since October.
The number of Border Patrol agents assigned to the southern border rose from 8,500 in 2000 to at least 9,500 today. Staffing along the Mexican border for the immigration, customs and agriculture departments, which monitor legal crossing points, grew from 4,371 in fiscal 2001 to 4,873 in the fiscal year that just ended.
New technology gives Border Patrol agents state-of-the-art helicopters to search for migrants from the air and a new generation of ground sensors and remote video systems to track them on the ground.
In FY 2001, the INS had a total of 31,971 full-time employees. This is nearly three times more than the 11,371 INS employees in 1986.
Along with more INS referrals, the Justice Department has credited the INS with more and more prosecutions and convictions:
One result—according to several measures, the INS has now become the most active of all federal agencies, outranking the FBI, DEA, Customs, ATF and IRS.
In FY 2001, for example, INS convictions made up 20.5 % of all such verdicts reached in federal courts. This compared with 19.3% for the FBI, 17.8% for the DEA, 9.7% for the Customs Service, 6.2% for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and 1.6% for the IRS.
More stories:
Secretary Ridge Inaugurates New Homeland Security Program at Southwest Border
Homeland Security Launches Operation Ice Storm (going after smugglers)
The bill provides the authority to hire 400 more Immigration and Naturalization investigators and inspectors processing the 500 million people that cross U.S. borders each year.
The majority of that bill sounds like it's allocated for the legal ports of entry and not to the wide open spaces of the rest of the border.
I do not believe that Bush and crew are going to do anything meaningful when it comes to illegal aliens. You can trust him if you want, but I don't.