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".
What is stringent? Door to door searches for illegals who didn't get a blue card? Road blocks?
If Bush has done little to nothing about illegals who have committed felony document fraud and actually is talking about rewarding those who used or would claim they used a stolen Social Security number --- what possibly could he intend to do to those who stold a blue card? What happens to the illegal who decides to sell or share his blue card so a friend or neighbor can use it to cross the border? Green cards are very commonly sold to other aliens, who then report them stolen so they can get a replacement. This just adds another document that can be fraudulently obtained and used for whatever purpose.