President Bush Proposes New Temporary Worker Program [Transcript]

The White House ^ | Jan 7, 2004 | President George W. Bush

[sweetliberty]

I said it was political, not that it was all about illegal votes. There is more to politics than that.

[William McKinley]

Liar liar pants on fire :-)

[txdoda]

What do you think this guest worker permit is all about?>>>>>

Sounds to me like tons of paperwork, w/ INS busy keeping up with who's working where, & who's not working.

Meantime, many original "illegal employers' will still be handing out jobs to the continuing flow of illegals.

[William McKinley]

Fourth, new laws should provide incentives for temporary, foreign workers to return permanently to their home countries after their period of work in the United States has expired.

This doesn't make sense. If they wanted to stay in their home countries, they wouldn't come to the USA in the first place.

Which is why the assertion is that the new laws should provide incentives for them to return home. Bush's proposal includes such an incentive (and while I am about to specify what it is, do not take me doing so as advocacy of the proposal).

What Bush is proposing is that those in this work program will have the equivalent of social security withholding taken out of every paycheck and put into a fund. When they leave, they get their money back. So basically if they work a few years, there is what amounts to a cash bonus for them to get out.

[McGavin999]

And your solution would be what? Deport them all? All 8 million?

[William McKinley]

There is also the requirement that it be a job that Americans are unwilling to take. What this means, however, is impossible to guage until we see what the legislation actually looks like. Does it mean at the same salary? What protections would there be that employers don't just use this program as a way to artificially drive down wages? And for those illegals who are currently holding jobs and want to become legit, does the employer have to try to replace them with an American first? All unknowns as of this speech.

[healey22]

Temporary workers will be able to establish their identities by obtaining the legal documents we all take for granted

No, Mr. President many Americans do not take their citizenship for granted, you do. You just diluted every Americans citizenship by this traitorous proposal of rewarding criminals with Amnesty.

I, for one, will throw my vote to anyone except the puppet of Vincente Fox.

There is no difference between the Rats and the country club Republicans anymore. The RATS will take us to the third world at 100 mph and Jorge will get us there at 80 mph.

[William McKinley]

Can become legal aliens (not citizens) by being documented, paying a fine, remaining employed, and jumping through some hoops.

Now if that is enough of a burden to discourage more illegals, I doubt it. But it's not exactly what I would call a reward.

[txdoda]

And your solution would be what? Deport them all? All 8 million?>>>>>

Take away all their 'freebies'. Actually fine the illegal employers (existing laws), & others might have second thoughts about employing illeglas.

Right before the 'wal-mart' bust, INS went into a TJ Maxx warehouse & found HALF (abt 275) the employees were illegal. The only punishment I ever heard about was TJM was told to terminate them. No fines, No deportations.

[txdoda]

That's a good point. I'm totally opposed to the idea of anchor babies and that must be addressed in the legislation.>>>>>>

This should be addressed ASAP, & would be an immediate deterant, to many 'illegals' NOW & save border hospitals much money.

[txdoda]

deterant=deterrent

[Aetius]

Thanks for the info. I'm still confused about the discrepancy between the 140,000 green cards President Bush says are issued each year and the million or so legal immigrants I know we admit each year. Is it that only about 140,000 are allowed to gain citizenship each year? Oh well, I'll try to find out. Maybe I just heard him wrong, but I think I read it too.

[Torie]

What protections would there be that employers don't just use this program as a way to artificially drive down wages?

The wage differential between the jobs illegals will take and the wages in Mexico must be low enough to truncate the economic incentive to illegally migrate in the first instance. The unspoken deus ex machina of the Bush plan is to do that with workers that are truly temporary, just like the Palestinians used to be that worked in Israel.

If the Dems decide to highlight the deus ex machina, the plan will probably die, and the status quo ante will be left in place. Many Dems will be evaluating if the temporary bit is a fig leaf, and if it is, might support it. The only way for the Bush plan to get traction is to persuade two different voting blocks that for the one block, the temporary bit is a fig leaf, and for the other that it is not. Maybe Bush needs to speed dial Clinton or something, to figure out how to do that.

Meanwhile the Dem block, will be pushing for details to increase the fig leaf odds, and the GOP block will be pushing for details to make the fig leaf more impermeable.

Meanwhile, many lower wage legal workers will hate it either way.

It should be interesting. The odds favor the status quo ante. But Bush does like to take risks to move the ball, and I cannot really fault him for that. At least it opens the matter up for further discussion.

[Sabertooth]

No, not amnesty...more like a plea bargain.

8 million violators are being offered a plea bargain in which they can pay a fine, register, and enter into a 3 year visa program on probation. If they lose their job, break a law, or misbehave, then they get deported and lose their eligibility to ever be in the U.S. again...and we will know where and how to deport them because they have *registered*.

They aren't visitors, they are tesspassers.

They've already misbehaved, they are Illegals.

If we don't deport them now when they're Illegal, we sure won't deport them after this Amnesty by other means.

President Bush has zero credibility on this subject. He has been lax in his deportation efforts for the 300,000 who've already been ordered out of the country. He's also been a champion of the Illegals since he spoke out against Proposition #187 in 1994. He's going to legalize a couple of million Illegals who arrived on his watch. In contrast, there would be no fee or registration for a true "amnesty." Amnesty is a very different beast, a beast that doesn't send you back to your home country after 3 years.

Pure spin cycle. They won't be going home again in three years if the politicians who don't have the guts to do the right thing now are rewarded for this farce.

Bush's Amnesty is unacceptable, and will cost far more votes than it gains.

If you really want to make it tougher to confirm conservative judges, hop on this Amnesty bandwagon. It's a disaster for the nation and the GOP.

[Age of Reason]

I'll agree with that. Accept for the country is too crowded part. I just think land is too expensive.

If there weren't so many customers for that land, it wouldn't cost so much.

There is only so much prime real estate in this country, and the more our population grows from immigration, the smaller the percentage of Americans that can own prime real estate.

How does that make America more prosperous?

I'd rather own a quarter-mile of private beachfront property on the East or West Coast, and my neighbors the same (nice and private for all of us), than have all the cheap electronic gizmos and the latest in auto bulgemobiles.

And then there's water rationing, pollution controls, garbage recycling, and all the associated laws and penalties . . . all signs of scarcity of resources.

AS for flyover country, you can keep it: boring and landlocked. Ugh.

[William McKinley]

Meanwhile, many lower wage legal workers will hate it either way.

That is what I keep hearing pundits say, but I can't quite understand why. It is my understanding that part of this proposal is that to get a blue card, an alien must get the employer to affirm that it was unable to find an American to take the job. That sounds to me like lower wage legal Americans are going to get job choice opportunities.

[Torie]

Sticking with the issue at hand, it would be helpful if a chart could be created that shows in one column the Bush plan on the details regarding temporary workers, line item by line item, and another column that has alternative details line item by line item (ie row by row), that increase the odds that the temporaries will return home, and only get permanent legal status via mechanisms that create a sensible triage for just who gets that valued permanent legal status green card ticket. (The second column might have additional lines that don't really fit as variations of the existing Bush plan line items.) The details for the alternative must be reasonably politically realistic (ie have some chance of passage), rather than pie in the sky it is all so wrong, so bring down the hammer Draconianism. In other words, sort of a chart of Sabertooth lite.

Just a suggestion. The alternative column of the chart need not be something one would endorse in the abstract, just something that might prove better than the status quo.

[Torie]

No, legal workers won't pick strawberries or wash floors, and work in a sweatshop, or slash away at manzanita overgrowth on hillsides, etc., at 5 dollars an hour. Push that wage up to 10 dollars an hour, and the dam will burst, and illegals will really start to pour in, unless we empty out the jail cells of druggies, and put employers in them in their stead.

[Torie]

I should add, that unable to find an American worker means at what wage? I assume it means the minimum wage. OK, push the minimum wage up. Well, maybe. But there is again more pressure on the dam, as well as all the other costs of minimum wages that are above market. Tricky stuff.

[sergeantkill]

ping