Posted on 01/08/2004 8:03:21 AM PST by PhiKapMom
The Bush proposal
Linda Chavez
January 8, 2004
President Bush announced a sweeping new immigration reform proposal this week that could become a hot-button issue in the November election. For months, insiders have hinted that the president would propose a new guest worker program aimed at allowing more foreign workers into the country on a temporary basis. Widely favored by the American business community, a guest worker program would allow employers to fill jobs in industries that routinely experience shortages of workers willing to do the often difficult, dangerous jobs Americans shun -- at least at wages that allow employers to remain in business.
But the guest worker provisions won't be the most controversial part of the administration's new proposal. Although some groups that want to limit immigration altogether -- such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) -- oppose guest worker plans, even such staunch restrictionists as Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) are on record supporting the idea of guest workers. The real battle will be over what to do with those millions of illegal aliens who are already here.
Some 8-12 million illegal aliens reside in the United States now -- up three- or four-fold from a decade ago. An estimated 60 percent of these are from Mexico alone, and it is no accident that the Bush plan was announced in anticipation of the president's meeting with his Mexican counterpart, President Vicente Fox, next week. The White House announced less than a week before the Fox meeting that millions of illegal aliens from Mexico and elsewhere will be allowed, over time, to earn legal status in the U.S., so long as they have been working continuously, paid taxes and not broken other laws. The plan will impose some penalties on these workers -- most likely fines similar to those proposed in legislation sponsored by Republican Representatives Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe and Senator John McCain, all from Arizona.
These proposals may not offer perfect justice -- who can blame those who resent rewarding "line jumpers" with legal status while millions of other would-be immigrants wait patiently to enter the country legally. But "earned legalization" is probably the best solution to a largely intractable problem. There is no way that the United States can find and deport 8-12 million illegal aliens in this country, and even if we could, we would do more harm than good.
The American economy depends on these workers, who, along with legal immigrants, contributed significantly to the economic boon of the 1990s. If FAIR could wave a magic wand and make these illegal aliens disappear overnight, the rest of us would suffer by having to pay more for everything from the food we put on the table to the houses in which we live. Our office buildings wouldn't get cleaned, our crops wouldn't get picked, our meat wouldn't get processed, nor our tables cleaned when we go out to eat.
Sure, we could double wages to attract American-born workers to some of these jobs, but at even twice the salary it would be difficult to fill the nastiest of these tasks, like processing poultry. But why would we want American workers, who we've spent trillions of dollars educating for 13 or 14 years, on average, to perform jobs that require only the most minimal skills? Even if we got rid of all illegal aliens in the U.S., these jobs would likely go to foreign workers, like it or not.
What sense does it make to insist that we get rid of the very people doing these jobs now in order to make way for other foreign workers to take them under a new guest worker plan? It makes a lot more sense to figure out how to get those illegal aliens already employed at these jobs to come in from the shadows and become part of the legal system. They should pay a penalty for having broken the law in the first place by sneaking into the country or overstaying their visas, but it is better for all of us if they earn their way toward legal status than remain in the illegal netherworld where they now hide.
Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Townhall.com member organization.
If you think that this proposal will not infuriate many NASCAR Dads and Reagan Democrats, you are just wrong.
Rove, the supposed political genius, has made a very serious blunder
And it's one of those areas where conservative ideals conflict, bigtime.
We want some form of immigration enforcement, because (a) we respect the rule of law, and (b) we think that completely unrestricted immigration is probably not a good thing.
We do not want an intrusive police state. When you're talking about rounding up 8-10 million people, you're running an extreme risk of creating one.
We do not want to spend gazillions of dollars. When you're talking about rounding up 8-10 million people, it's going to cost at least a few kajillion or so.
The question is how to resolve these conflicts.
All of us here have broken the law at one point or another and what happens? ...... We face justice. If these illegal aliens are made to pay a fine for breaking our immigration laws, it's no different than what happens to any of us who break the law. We are not talking about a felony here, we are talking about aliens working here illegally
They have no idea that in order to implement their vision, we'd need to load them onto trainloads of cattlecars. Can you see the Leftist Presstitutes haing a field day with that picture? Then, you'd really start seeing the Bush-as-Hitler stories all over the place.
She's right. She could have also added that President Bush didn't create this problem so the question to ask is...."Wny are so many Repubs blaming him for it"?
This argument is apparently the most widespread among those supporting this legislation, and it is also the most specious. The supposition is that because we have created a massive illegal immigration problem by not enforcing the laws, we therefore have no alternative but to "fuggedaboutit." The argument's also predicated on an emotional appeal: all those who oppose amnesty are therefore advocating massive deportation.
Both of these arguments are false. In the first case, we are abdicating responsibility for a massive problem because our lawmakers do not have the political will to fix it, not because it's unfixable. In the second case, even immigration reform advocates such as Tancredo are not advocating massive deportation, but rather an orderly procedure that requires immigrants to qualify, individually, for time-limited work visas, based on criteria other than an employer's need for cheap labor. Certainly, this will take time and massive effort -- but, contrary to our massive efforts on the war on terror, our space exploration program and other incredibly complicated and expensive federally funded undertakings -- sensible immigration reform and enforcement of existing laws is somehow not "doable."
Bullfeathers.
To quote John Derbyshire, "We have no idea what is politically achievable until some politician tries to achieve it. In a democracy, that happens when enough people make enough noise banging on the politicians' doors." Apparently, the only people banging loud enough to be heard on this issue are Vincente Fox, businesses that rely on cheap exploitative labor, open border advocates and misguided Republican campaign strategists.
Your argument that Repubs are blaming Bush for creating the problem is also nonsensical. Those who object to this amnesty program are not blaming Bush for the original problem, but we are blaming him for repeated attempts at making the problem worse. If this legislation passes, we are likely to see a massive increase in both legal and illegal immigration as we signal the world most emphatically that there is no immigration law that can't be overcome by sheer force of numbers combined with our lack of political will.
Very well stated comments and this last paragraph speaks volumes IMHO!
IIRC, the story was just a shot at Chavez to keep her off Bush's cabinet, and was quickly dropped after she decided not to fight the press to your satisfaction.
Make no mistake, this is amnesty for those already here and an open door for more to come in from any country. They are supposed to be here for 3 or 6 years, then be banished back to their country of origin. That's the spin.
Nope, folks, that ain't how it will go. It's not just the worker that will be allowed to come here (or stay here if they are already here), it's the worker's family also. During those 3 to 6 years babies get born, anchor babies they are called, then they never have to leave. They get full social services, the whole 9 yards.
I will not vote for Bush.
Not under Tancredo's plan...which BTW was mentioned in the article...
SPECIAL RULE ON CITIZENSHIP AT BIRTH FOR CHILDREN OF H NONIMMIGRANTS- Notwithstanding title III of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1401 et seq.), or any other law, a child born in the United States to a parent who is a nonimmigrant described in section 101(a)(15)(H) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (as amended by section 210 of this Act) shall not be a national or citizen of the United States at birth unless the other parent is a citizen of the United States or an alien lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence.The big picture that some, well actually, most of you seem to miss is that Bush stated clearly that it would be up to Congress to deal with the details of the guest worker program, he merely gave an outline and a little shove to get the ball rolling. Check out Tancredo's version, I think you will be surprised.
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