His proposal is brilliant except for one flaw.
The brilliance? The part that says anyone wanting to take part in this must get their employer to show no Americans wanted the job.
That will cause the cost of those involved significantly higher. Companies will be forced to show that they tried to find Americans for the job. They will have to be prepared to defend lawsuits from out of work Americans and the ever rabid trial lawyers if they want to rely on these workers. This cost will make it so that the jobs which the people are coming across the border to get won't be there, which removes the incentive for crossing the border, particularly if the benefits only go to those who have jobs and are paying taxes.
Further, for those who do manage to get their employer to vouch that no American wanted the job, so that they can get into the program, we now know who they are and where they are, two things we don't now know, all in exchange for involvement in a program which could be legislated away at any time. Some would be skeptical that it ever would be, but in an economic downturn, ending a guest worker program so Americans could get the jobs would be very politically doable.
And of all the illegals who are out there now, there are some who are harmless and those who are not. Those who sign up for this would more often than not be in the harmless side; they are the ones who really would rather not be hiding and don't mind us knowing they are here. This would make the pool of those who are here completely illegally smaller, which would lessen the burden on our security agencies.
As specified, the proposal is worlds, worlds, worlds better than I had feared based on the initial reports and the initial debate here.
So it is brilliant in that it would put a damper on further illegal immigration, pressure companies to not hire illegals, would get many illegals to tell us who and where they are. I am pretty sure that as this debate rolls on, almost all of the leftist leaning immigration groups are going to come out hot and heavy against these proposals. That should tell us something.
But it has a fatal flaw which means that we really should be opposing it anyway- namely that the courts would very likely find some reason to strike down that one very provision, stating that it is an impossible standard to meet (you know liberal judges). And if that one aspect of the plan is removed, then the whole thing is garbage.
Relying on a single beam of support in a very large structure when there are sledgehammer weilding Judges all over the place is a very bad idea.