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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.

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.

"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."

Indeed, they are trespassers and they are illegal. One of the tools to deal with criminals, however, is the plea bargain.

In particular, the U.S. does not want to prosecute 8 million trespassers, intern them in holding camps, and film global news footage of 8 million criminals being deported in some 30 mile long chain gang line on their way back to the border en masse.

Instead, we want them to plead guilty, pay a fine, Register with our government, work for three full years non-stop, pay taxes (some refundable) during those 3 years, and then return on their own accord back to their home countries, at which time they will be eligible to follow the current *legal*, lawful immigration procedures for re-entry (and/or for the refund of whatever portion of their taxes are legally refundable to them). They also have to avoid committing any felonies why they are here.

If they abide by all of these rules, then they get their tax refunds plus an opportunity to re-enter the U.S. legally.

If they fail, then we get to deport those few failing individuals because they have *registered* with our government (something that they have not done to date), and they lose their tax refunds, and they lose the right to ever enter or work in the U.S. again.

"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."

With three years of their lives, plus 3 years of some refundable taxes invested, *MOST* of the illegals will return home on their own accord rather than forfeit and lose all of that investment.

That's the beauty of Bush's plan. First they Register so that we finally know who and where they are (as well as learn their employers), then they pay a fine for being here illegally (or they can go back to their home country and avoid the fine), then they have to stay out of felonious trouble and hold a paying job and pay taxes for three straight years, and then they have to go back to their home countries before they can proceed with getting legal permission to stay/work here any longer (as well as to get their taxes refunded).

And world opinion can't touch us. Unlike what would happen if news crews filmed the logistics of deporting 8 million illegals at once, no one can cry about illegals going home on their own volition to re-apply for U.S. re-entry from their home country.

"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."

I disagree. This isn't "amnesty." Amnesty doesn't plea bargain a fine and face self-deportation after 3 years. This is a backdoor Registration program for illegals that gun-owners, were we in the position of illegals today, would positively SCREAM against if it was directed against us instead of them.

And it is a Registration plan that is crafted so well that the Democrats well wind up self-immolating with their own opposition to it.

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".