Top Immigration Official: Bush Proposal Doable

Arizona Daily Star ^ | January 11, 2004 | Wire Reports

[Reaganwuzthebest]

WASHINGTON - The nation's top immigration official says registering 8 million illegal residents for temporary permits, as proposed by President Bush last week, would be a "tall challenge" but doable.

Eduardo Aguirre, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, conceded in an interview that his agency is still struggling with a huge backlog that has recently grown to nearly 6.2 million pending applications. Requests for a change of status, for example, are now backed up more than 2 1/2 years.

"We are certainly not satisfied on where it is today," he said of the agency he inherited, which was recently reorganized after a long history of administrative problems.

"But we continue to make inroads," said the former Houston banker, himself an immigrant from Cuba. "I am very comfortable that we are on track to do what we need to do."

As the election-year debate over immigration was launched, Aguirre defended the White House plan as a "bold" solution to "a very old and pervasive problem." He addressed some of the major objections raised by critics and sidestepped others, saying Congress will resolve those when it takes up the proposal.

Justifying the Bush proposal

On the backlog problem, Aguirre said his staff was already coming up with ideas to deal with the potential deluge of 8 million to 10 million applicants for temporary work permits. Office hours could be extended, new facilities opened and new technology adopted for gathering "biometrics," such as fingerprints, on each applicant, he said.

On other issues:

* Security would be enhanced inside the country if information is gathered on the huge pool of illegal residents, he argued. "I don't like knowing that there are 8 million people, 8 million blips on my radar screen that I cannot identify."

* The economy would be helped if illegal residents can come "out of the shadows" and begin opening bank accounts, taking out loans to buy cars and entering the economic mainstream, he said.

* Immigrants' rights would be better protected in the workplace, he said, since they would have legal status. They would not be the captive of a single employer, he added, since temporary workers would have a window, perhaps 90 to 180 days, to find a new job before losing their work permits.

Aguirre was less precise about other aspects of the plan.

For example, to those worried about competition for American workers, he said, "That's where Congress is going to have to come in. If they want to be very strict about how you make the employers justify how hard they've searched for Americans, that's fine with me."

Aguirre declined to give a ballpark number of how many more permanent residency "green cards" might be added to the current annual cap of 140,000.

Nor would he provide details on incentives for Mexican workers to return home and draw pensions based on their contributions to Social Security or to individual retirement accounts. Aguirre would not say whether these workers should be credited for Social Security payments made while they were illegal workers.

Learning from past mistakes

Immigration experts and critics on both sides of the political spectrum caution that policy-makers should heed some of the past programs' failings by building in strong worker protections and enforcing the law when it comes to employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Bush's plan is a modern-day rewrite of the World War II guest worker program that "tore families apart and stripped laborers of their earnings and their future," the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said after the president proposed his idea Wednesday.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, an advocate of stricter immigration enforcement, accused Bush of "totally ignoring the nation's experience with the ill-fated 1986 amnesty program," which granted legal status to almost 3 million undocumented immigrants.

That program "only encouraged a new wave of illegal immigration," said Tancredo, R-Colo.

The braceros program - named after brazo, the Spanish word for arm - was the first of the two earlier efforts. Under an agreement between the United States and Mexico, as many as 5 million temporary workers crossed the border to fill a labor shortage caused by World War II, said Oscar Martinez, a history professor at the University of Arizona.

But the braceros, who worked mostly in agriculture, didn't have many of the same rights as Americans. "Braceros were at the mercy of the employers," Martinez said. "There was limited government oversight and there were lots of abuses."

Many workers lived in overcrowded camps and were denied medical assistance and the right to organize, advocates say.

Some braceros are still engaged in a legal battle with the U.S. and Mexican governments, seeking money that was set aside in savings funds to be paid to them once they returned to Mexico.

Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said lawmakers should remember what happened. "If you want to establish any kind of guest worker program, we've got to make sure that we treat people with dignity," by ensuring "they be given the same wages, the same benefits that anyone else would get doing the same kind of work."

Bush said in his proposal that temporary workers should enjoy the same rights as American workers.

The braceros program had another consequence, some say - encouraging illegal immigration. The number of people caught entering the country illegally increased tenfold from 1964, when the braceros program ended, to 1976, according to a recent report by the National Foundation for American Policy.

It "made many sectors of the Mexican population familiar with the whole process of coming to the United States to work, and going back and forth," said Frank Bean, a demographer at the University of California, Irvine.

"Anytime you have a guest worker program of one kind or another, you end up with permanent migration."

[Reaganwuzthebest]

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[alloysteel]

Doing the alternative to the Bush proposal, which is to clarify the legal status of the immigrant worker who neglected to obtain those papers and documents currently called for by immigration law, would be an impossible task. Just picking up and transporting back to Mexico all the undocumented Mexican citizens now roam around the country, would be a hideous expense, and demand a considerable investment in manpower, holding facilities and means of transportation that we may not have available, considering that we are on war footing at the moment.

Never mind, for the moment, the political implications. The economics would be all wrong, as a number of enterprises have by now grown totally dependent on the steady stream of low-wage transients to do their day's work. Paying even minimum wages would cause many of these operations to fail, and the others would have to reduce their scope accordingly. In the long run, over a couple years, the overall benefits of removing the low-wage employees would be realized, as the pressure on housing, schooling, medical care and law enforcement would be relieved. but a number of "Mom and Pop" businesses would fold.

"Mom and Pop" vote, and they tell all ther neighbors. So in a show of misplaced sympathy, the politics of shipping 8 million or more Mexicans back to Mexico works against anyone who would implement such a plan.

[upchuck]

Office hours could be extended, new facilities opened and new technology adopted for gathering "biometrics," such as fingerprints, on each applicant, he said.

And, of course, the guvament would pay for all this right?

I remember reading somewhere (probably here on FR but I don't have a link) last year that the INS had admitted that trying to round up 8-10 million criminal aliens would be an impossible task.

And now they are saying registering these same criminals is a "tall challenge" but doable? I'm sorry, what changed?

[AzJohn]

I remember reading somewhere (probably here on FR but I don't have a link) last year that the INS had admitted that trying to round up 8-10 million criminal aliens would be an impossible task.

And now they are saying registering these same criminals is a "tall challenge" but doable? I'm sorry, what changed?

I'm not following your thought. "Round up" sounds like you are going out and finding them. Wouldn't most of them come on in voluntarily to register as guest workers?

Nonetheless, I am also skeptical of the government's ability to pull this off unless we do a major revamp of the relevant bureaucracy, especially considering that there are 6.2 million pending immigration applications that many think should come first.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Doing the alternative to the Bush proposal, which is to clarify the legal status of the immigrant worker who neglected to obtain those papers and documents currently called for by immigration law, would be an impossible task.

I'm not in favor of mass round-ups either, that would be counterproductive in the long-run and only help the open borders crowd with their agenda.

But there are a few things we can do besides tighten up the borders:

Enforce employer sanctions and let the police assist ICE with those they catch in their routine duties. Also, take away social benefits and the anchor baby magnet. As a result many would self-deport as they did in the fifties. At the very least we would be discouraging future illegal entries.

Rewarding illegal aliens with any more amnesties is not the answer and is just as counterproductive as mass round-ups.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

I remember reading somewhere (probably here on FR but I don't have a link) last year that the INS had admitted that trying to round up 8-10 million criminal aliens would be an impossible task.

And now they are saying registering these same criminals is a "tall challenge" but doable? I'm sorry, what changed?

"Where there's a will there's a way" apparently only applies when it's an agenda they support.

[searchandrecovery]

Abolish citizenship now (hey, it doesn't mean anything anyway).

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Abolish citizenship now (hey, it doesn't mean anything anyway).

It won't if this proposal passes. Why would a potential legal immigrant even bother with all the paperwork, wait, and expense when they can just break in and get rewarded?

[dagnabbit]

Aguirre said his staff was already coming up with ideas to deal with the potential deluge of 8 million to 10 million applicants for temporary work permits

Let me guess:

• Dropping off crates of "blue cards" at Mexican consulates and letting Mexican diplomats issues them instead of, or along with, "matricula" illegal alien IDs.
• Leaving bins of cards on streetcorners in appropriate neighborhoods.
• Sprinkle from aircraft.

[dagnabbit]

Actually, what the government will do to tackle the "challenge" of processing tens of millions of temporary worker applications, is the same thing they already do - contract it out.

So what you'll get is office parks of private companies with stables of low-wage data entry types processing the paperwork.

And guess where these companies will get the bodies to staff-up?

....that's right you guessed it.

[searchandrecovery]

Right back atya. Being a native u.s. "citizen" is like being a prisoner - what other country could I easily just walk into and become a citizen (or even dual-citizen)? If you're going to tear down the "in" door, you gotta break open the "out" door, too. Get me the F outta here.

[mtbopfuyn]

Hmm, if registering 8 million illegals is doable then why the heck isn't kicking 8 million illegals out doable?

[dagnabbit]

I forgot the other option for processing the paperwork of amnestied illegals and new third-world migrants - outsourcing.

These new applications could be scanned in locally, or accepted on-line - and then processed in India.

This wouldn't be precedent, I heard the INS at one time was processing "I-94" cards (dropped off by exiting foreign visitors at airports) through some offshore company operating in the Dominican Republic or some such place

[MissAmericanPie]

Of course it's doable, it does nothing to stop illegal immigration but encourage more, it does nothing to deport illegals, it does nothing worth doing in fact.

This is a complete losing proposition for American citizens, as usual, and we are up to here with measures that are not even half measures. They are designed to do nothing but triple and quadrupal the problem.

[searchandrecovery]

I forgot the other option for processing the paperwork of amnestied illegals and new third-world migrants - outsourcing.

Well done. The first and best link I've seen between Immigration and Outsourcing. Humorous (in an ouch, yea, kind of way).

[Reaganwuzthebest]

What are they saying in Texas about this? I think I've got an idea how they feel about it in California.

[dagnabbit]

Hmm, if registering 8 million illegals is doable then why the heck isn't kicking 8 million illegals out doable?

The practical answer is that it is a lot easier to sell people something they want, than to make them do something they don't want. I bet 5 immigration service employees could probably process 500 "blue card" applications in a day, more if they (as is likely) don't read them. Now how many illegals could they physically capture, process (includes seeing immigration judge) and transport in one day? Three, five, ten?

The political courage answer is that Bush doesn't have any on this issue. While we could never deport as fast as we stamp applications, we could still deport a lot and send a message to illegals remaining.

A better question might be why we should expect the Bush administration to start cracking down on employers of illegals, something that would drive illegals home faster than deportaion, and something they haven't bothered to do in their three years at the helm.

[swarthyguy]

why we should expect the Bush administration to start cracking down on employers of illegals,

LOL! And piss of the chamber of commerce and the heads of meatpacking plants, agricultural companies, building contractors and Hotels?

You really think laws should be enforced?

Right, the head of Hilton and Marriott will do a perp walk.

I say, using this logic, legalise dope and tax the hell out it. Too many dope users to enforce the law anyway.

Yes, BTW, I'm racist.