President Bush Proposes New Temporary Worker Program [Transcript]

President Bush Proposes New Temporary Worker Program
Remarks by the President on Immigration Policy The East Room

THE PRESIDENT: Thanks for coming, thanks for the warm welcome, thanks for joining me as I make this important announcement -- an announcement that I believe will make America a more compassionate and more humane and stronger country.

We must make our immigration laws more rational, and more humane. And I believe we can do so without jeopardizing the livelihoods of American citizens, said President Bush. White House photo by Paul Morse. I appreciate members of my Cabinet who have joined me today, starting with our Secretary of State, Colin Powell. (Applause.) I'm honored that our Attorney General, John Ashcroft, has joined us. (Applause.) Secretary of Commerce, Don Evans. (Applause.) Secretary Tom Ridge, of the Department of Homeland Security. (Applause.) El Embajador of Mexico, Tony Garza. (Applause.) I thank all the other members of my administration who have joined us today.

I appreciate the members of Congress who have taken time to come: Senator Larry Craig, Congressman Chris Cannon, and Congressman Jeff Flake. I'm honored you all have joined us, thank you for coming.

I appreciate the members of citizen groups who have joined us today. Chairman of the Hispanic Alliance for Progress, Manny Lujan. Gil Moreno, the President and CEO of the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans. Roberto De Posada, the President of the Latino Coalition. And Hector Flores, the President of LULAC.

Many of you here today are Americans by choice, and you have followed in the path of millions. And over the generations we have received energetic, ambitious, optimistic people from every part of the world. By tradition and conviction, our country is a welcoming society. America is a stronger and better nation because of the hard work and the faith and entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants.

Every generation of immigrants has reaffirmed the wisdom of remaining open to the talents and dreams of the world. And every generation of immigrants has reaffirmed our ability to assimilate newcomers -- which is one of the defining strengths of our country.

During one great period of immigration -- between 1891 and 1920 -- our nation received some 18 million men, women and children from other nations. The hard work of these immigrants helped make our economy the largest in the world. The children of immigrants put on the uniform and helped to liberate the lands of their ancestors. One of the primary reasons America became a great power in the 20th century is because we welcomed the talent and the character and the patriotism of immigrant families.

The contributions of immigrants to America continue. About 14 percent of our nation's civilian workforce is foreign-born. Most begin their working lives in America by taking hard jobs and clocking long hours in important industries. Many immigrants also start businesses, taking the familiar path from hired labor to ownership.

As a Texan, I have known many immigrant families, mainly from Mexico, and I have seen what they add to our country. They bring to America the values of faith in God, love of family, hard work and self reliance -- the values that made us a great nation to begin with. We've all seen those values in action, through the service and sacrifice of more than 35,000 foreign-born men and women currently on active duty in the United States military. One of them is Master Gunnery Sergeant Guadalupe Denogean, an immigrant from Mexico who has served in the Marine Corps for 25 years and counting. Last year, I was honored and proud to witness Sergeant Denogean take the oath of citizenship in a hospital where he was recovering from wounds he received in Iraq. I'm honored to be his Commander-in-Chief, I'm proud to call him a fellow American. (Applause.)

As a nation that values immigration, and depends on immigration, we should have immigration laws that work and make us proud. Yet today we do not. Instead, we see many employers turning to the illegal labor market. We see millions of hard-working men and women condemned to fear and insecurity in a massive, undocumented economy. Illegal entry across our borders makes more difficult the urgent task of securing the homeland. The system is not working. Our nation needs an immigration system that serves the American economy, and reflects the American Dream.

Reform must begin by confronting a basic fact of life and economics: some of the jobs being generated in America's growing economy are jobs American citizens are not filling. Yet these jobs represent a tremendous opportunity for workers from abroad who want to work and fulfill their duties as a husband or a wife, a son or a daughter.

Their search for a better life is one of the most basic desires of human beings. Many undocumented workers have walked mile after mile, through the heat of the day and the cold of the night. Some have risked their lives in dangerous desert border crossings, or entrusted their lives to the brutal rings of heartless human smugglers. Workers who seek only to earn a living end up in the shadows of American life -- fearful, often abused and exploited. When they are victimized by crime, they are afraid to call the police, or seek recourse in the legal system. They are cut off from their families far away, fearing if they leave our country to visit relatives back home, they might never be able to return to their jobs.

The situation I described is wrong. It is not the American way. Out of common sense and fairness, our laws should allow willing workers to enter our country and fill jobs that Americans have are not filling. (Applause.) We must make our immigration laws more rational, and more humane. And I believe we can do so without jeopardizing the livelihoods of American citizens.

Our reforms should be guided by a few basic principles. First, America must control its borders. Following the attacks of September the 11th, 2001, this duty of the federal government has become even more urgent. And we're fulfilling that duty.

For the first time in our history, we have consolidated all border agencies under one roof to make sure they share information and the work is more effective. We're matching all visa applicants against an expanded screening list to identify terrorists and criminals and immigration violators. This month, we have begun using advanced technology to better record and track aliens who enter our country -- and to make sure they leave as scheduled. We have deployed new gamma and x-ray systems to scan cargo and containers and shipments at ports of entry to America. We have significantly expanded the Border Patrol -- with more than a thousand new agents on the borders, and 40 percent greater funding over the last two years. We're working closely with the Canadian and Mexican governments to increase border security. America is acting on a basic belief: our borders should be open to legal travel and honest trade; our borders should be shut and barred tight to criminals, to drug traders, to drug traffickers and to criminals, and to terrorists.

Second, new immigration laws should serve the economic needs of our country. If an American employer is offering a job that American citizens are not willing to take, we ought to welcome into our country a person who will fill that job.

Third, we should not give unfair rewards to illegal immigrants in the citizenship process or disadvantage those who came here lawfully, or hope to do so.

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.

Today, I ask the Congress to join me in passing new immigration laws that reflect these principles, that meet America's economic needs, and live up to our highest ideals. (Applause.)

I propose a new temporary worker program that will match willing foreign workers with willing American employers, when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs. This program will offer legal status, as temporary workers, to the millions of undocumented men and women now employed in the United States, and to those in foreign countries who seek to participate in the program and have been offered employment here. This new system should be clear and efficient, so employers are able to find workers quickly and simply.

All who participate in the temporary worker program must have a job, or, if not living in the United States, a job offer. The legal status granted by this program will last three years and will be renewable -- but it will have an end. Participants who do not remain employed, who do not follow the rules of the program, or who break the law will not be eligible for continued participation and will be required to return to their home.

Under my proposal, employers have key responsibilities. Employers who extend job offers must first make every reasonable effort to find an American worker for the job at hand. Our government will develop a quick and simple system for employers to search for American workers. Employers must not hire undocumented aliens or temporary workers whose legal status has expired. They must report to the government the temporary workers they hire, and who leave their employ, so that we can keep track of people in the program, and better enforce immigration laws. There must be strong workplace enforcement with tough penalties for anyone, for any employer violating these laws.

Undocumented workers now here will be required to pay a one-time fee to register for the temporary worker program. Those who seek to join the program from abroad, and have complied with our immigration laws, will not have to pay any fee. All participants will be issued a temporary worker card that will allow them to travel back and forth between their home and the United States without fear of being denied re-entry into our country. (Applause.)

This program expects temporary workers to return permanently to their home countries after their period of work in the United States has expired. And there should be financial incentives for them to do so. I will work with foreign governments on a plan to give temporary workers credit, when they enter their own nation's retirement system, for the time they have worked in America. I also support making it easier for temporary workers to contribute a portion of their earnings to tax-preferred savings accounts, money they can collect as they return to their native countries. After all, in many of those countries, a small nest egg is what is necessary to start their own business, or buy some land for their family.

Some temporary workers will make the decision to pursue American citizenship. Those who make this choice will be allowed to apply in the normal way. They will not be given unfair advantage over people who have followed legal procedures from the start. I oppose amnesty, placing undocumented workers on the automatic path to citizenship. Granting amnesty encourages the violation of our laws, and perpetuates illegal immigration. America is a welcoming country, but citizenship must not be the automatic reward for violating the laws of America. (Applause.)

The citizenship line, however, is too long, and our current limits on legal immigration are too low. My administration will work with the Congress to increase the annual number of green cards that can lead to citizenship. Those willing to take the difficult path of citizenship -- the path of work, and patience, and assimilation -- should be welcome in America, like generations of immigrants before them. (Applause.)

In the process of immigration reform, we must also set high expectations for what new citizens should know. An understanding of what it means to be an American is not a formality in the naturalization process, it is essential to full participation in our democracy. My administration will examine the standard of knowledge in the current citizenship test. We must ensure that new citizens know not only the facts of our history, but the ideals that have shaped our history. Every citizen of America has an obligation to learn the values that make us one nation: liberty and civic responsibility, equality under God, and tolerance for others.

This new temporary worker program will bring more than economic benefits to America. Our homeland will be more secure when we can better account for those who enter our country, instead of the current situation in which millions of people are unknown, unknown to the law. Law enforcement will face fewer problems with undocumented workers, and will be better able to focus on the true threats to our nation from criminals and terrorists. And when temporary workers can travel legally and freely, there will be more efficient management of our borders and more effective enforcement against those who pose a danger to our country. (Applause.)

This new system will be more compassionate. Decent, hard-working people will now be protected by labor laws, with the right to change jobs, earn fair wages, and enjoy the same working conditions that the law requires for American workers. Temporary workers will be able to establish their identities by obtaining the legal documents we all take for granted. And they will be able to talk openly to authorities, to report crimes when they are harmed, without the fear of being deported. (Applause.)

The best way, in the long run, to reduce the pressures that create illegal immigration in the first place is to expand economic opportunity among the countries in our neighborhood. In a few days I will go to Mexico for the Special Summit of the Americas, where we will discuss ways to advance free trade, and to fight corruption, and encourage the reforms that lead to prosperity. Real growth and real hope in the nations of our hemisphere will lessen the flow of new immigrants to America when more citizens of other countries are able to achieve their dreams at their own home. (Applause.)

Yet our country has always benefited from the dreams that others have brought here. By working hard for a better life, immigrants contribute to the life of our nation. The temporary worker program I am proposing today represents the best tradition of our society, a society that honors the law, and welcomes the newcomer. This plan will help return order and fairness to our immigration system, and in so doing we will honor our values, by showing our respect for those who work hard and share in the ideals of America.

OK, one more time (sigh). A law which has not been enforced for decades can be fought in court as selective enforcement. I want us to go after the employers, these guys have big bucks to pay lawyers, and they will spend them to employ lawyers as well as illegal aliens.

A new law starts out fresh, gives everyone the rules, and the minute someone breaks it you can come down on them like a ton of bricks. Given the national security situation they wouldn't have an inch of wiggle room because they were given a remedy, had the ramifacations spelled out for them, and if they ignored it under those circumstances there would be NO EXCUSE.

As post #278 indicates, illegals have to go home after their 3 year visa expires. There they can request that it be renewed. Some will be renewed. Some won't.

For those not renewed, that illegal is now out of our country permanently (per Bush's plan).

Again, see post #278. Read it. Take a deep breath. Think about it. Compare it to the rest of the transcript for today's speech. Take another deep breath. Contemplate. Relax. Sleep on it. Think some more.

Then re-read Post #278. You'll feel substantially more clever at that point.

See post #278. Bush's new plan specifically addresses compelling illegals to return to their home countries once their 3 year visas expire.

Won't happen. President Bush doesn't want to enforce our immigration laws against Illegals now, and he won't do it in the future against the Illegals he would legalize today.
He hasn't made a diligent effort to deport the 300,000 foreigners currently under deportation orders.
There is no reason to believe that President Bush won't come up with yet another Amnesty plan down the road, given that his current one is the second that he's proposed thus far. He has engendered zero trust on this matter.

Also, a plea bargain doesn't have to return the world to its pre-crime state. Killers can't bring their victims back to life, but yet even some murders are plea bargained.

I'm not comparing Illegals to murderers. They're actually thieves, who are stealing their residence in our nation, in violation of our laws.
How would you fee about a plea bargain where the car thief paid a "fine" and kept your car for three years?

It still doesn't get you any closer to being a citizen. You have to have a green card to do that and there are only so many slots available for legal immigration.

That will bring us to Phase II of the Bush Amnesty.
"Gee, we need to do something with all of these guest workers. We can't deport them all, and they can't be second class residents forever."
Bang! Zoom! ... green cards.

I think you need to re-read the speech. You keep referring to his statement that workers will "return permanently to their home countries after their period of work in the US has expired". You are ignoring the fact that he said they can renew their blue cards. Your quote specifically reinforces that they don't have to return home to renew their blue cards, because of the word PERMANANTLY. You can keep saying they have to return home to renew their blue cards, just like you keep saying this isn't amnesty, but that doesn't make it so.

Most of the arguments for Bush's immigration initiative are supporting it based on the premise that new laws will suddenly take effect that will eventually correct the "illegal" status of immigrants.

For the laws to even begin to start working, if they were legislated tomorrow, would take years.

Much thought and logistics have gone into this new initiative, and it is a given that the problem must be addressed and the new laws put into action immediately.

But we're talking millions of illegals here, scattered from New York to Miami to San Diego to Seattle.

One major weakness of the initiative are the assumptions that:

#1 - Illegal immigrants already here will voluntarily come forward and participate. and,

#2 - Those small, medium, and large businesses and corporations now supporting these illegals will also voluntarily come forward and participate.

The assumption made by the government is that both parties will come forward.

Without being able to identify who these parties are, the iniitiative is not worth the paper it is written on and would therefore be unenforceable.

We are back to SQUARE ONE before the law has even been enacted.

"How would you fee about a plea bargain where the car thief paid a "fine" and kept your car for three years?"

Been there, done that. I had a fine Z-28 back in Houston that was thief bait. After they've been stolen, you don't want them back, trust me. You just want the insurance money. The thief screws you more by letting your car get recovered than by just taking it.

OK, enough of that digression. I do understand where you were trying to go metaphorically with that analogy. Even so, the thief seldom is able to return all of what was taken. Thus, a plea bargain getting some concessions has some merit.

And here's what I want: I want all illegals to be registered. Our options on what we can do with them increase once we know who they all are, where they all live, and where they all work. So first things first, lets convince them to register themselves.

Next, I want a *realistic* way to manage 8 million illegals.

On this latter point I'm open to suggestions, but for my money what Bush has proposed (i.e. voluntary registration, voluntary self-deportation after 3 years, punishments and bans for non-compliance, etc.) is a pretty good start.

Admittedly, this is a compromise. For Registering and paying a fine, illegals gain legal status to work here for the next 3 years. So we've given up something. On the other hand, after three years each illegal has some significant portion of their lives invested in this legal program, so they now have some substantial incentive to comply with the self-deportation requirement after their 3 years are up. On this point, we have suddenly found a way to deport 8 million illegals in the next 3 years.

Logistically, it would be a challenge to make it happen any faster than that time period even with our military involved, and that alternative style of forced deportation certainly wouldn't be great for our international reputation (for whatever, if anything, that is worth).

"That will bring us to Phase II of the Bush Amnesty. "Gee, we need to do something with all of these guest workers. We can't deport them all, and they can't be second class residents forever."

Ah, but we *can* do something about those who have registered with this new program. Their failure to voluntarily comply with their mandatory self-deportation after 3 years will leave them *registered* with our government where they are easy to find and deal with, as well as forfeiting the tax monies that they are owed in refunds, as well as forfeiting the chance to ever again be legal (per this plan).

The big difference between this plan and past plans is that this plan requires government registration for *temporary* work permits. Once registered, they are a manageable problem.

Should 8 million illegals remain unregistered, however, then we can hardly do much about them short of radical military moves.

In the above transcript it states that the quota for legal immigration is 140,000 a year. There is no way in the world it would be raised to 1,000,000 a year (which is what we have right now, illegally).

I still say the best way to solve this problem is to put the ball in Mexico's court. We've just made a move for them, now they have to do something for us. Property ownership by Americans should be made legal in Mexico. That would do two things, it would encourage investment in Mexico and two, that investment would result in jobs in Mexico.

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

Don't be so sure. I get the distinct impression that after a while the "other shoe" is going to drop on this proposal, which is much more stringent policing of the illegals who *don't* "register themselves" with a blue card.

I think what you're missing is that there *will* be distinct differences between the "old" (current) system and the new system, which will change the political and economic landscape enough to allow some *real* border border control for a change.

Currently, border control with real "teeth" is a major hot potato, because economically, there *would* be a giant worker shortage in some industries if we could wave a magic wand and make all illegal workers vanish back to their own countries, and politically there would be a big backlash against any politician who came down hard on "all those poor minority workers who are just trying to feed their families and have no other options".

As the "blue card" program is being hammered out, however, both of those "third rail" problems vaporise. Economically, businesses can still hire as many cheap foreign workers as they need, but *legally* and in a way that better registers and tracks who's doing what. And politically, who can bitch about cracking down on the remaining illegal "immigrants" in the country when there's a straightforward way for well-intentioned foreigners to be here to work legally as long as they go through the right paperwork?

Done right (and Bush is no idiot), this is a win-win proposal. It provides a legal way to answer the pressures that have led to much of the illegal-immigrant flood in the first place, and at the same time it cuts the legs out from under objections to cranking up tough measures against anyone who still insists on coming here illegally.

Additionally, it encourages well-intentioned foreigners to "register" themselves for a change, *and* it lets law enforcement concentrate more on the remaining real troublemakers instead of all the guys who are just here to make more money than they can make back "home".

Didn't we already have quite a few guest worker programs --- like H1B and a whole lot of others? This seems only to add on another --- soon to become very very large --- but what happens to the illegal who would rather not fill out forms, or go through a background check or wait for our government to process his along with 8 or whatever million applications, or for the government to match him with a job --- and he just goes ahead and comes over and finds a job on his own?

To me this looks like we've added a new type of guest worker --- only it's going to be millions but this won't solve the problem with massive migration and much of it illegal.

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