[JustPiper]

Ping!!!

[Howlin]

According to a Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans disapprove of the proposal. A poll by ABC News found that 52 percent of the country opposes allowing illegal immigrants from Mexico "to live and work legally in the United States."

So, barely half.

[Acolyte]

>>This is why Bush supporters are eager to sell the plan as having benefits outside of immigration. Miss Iverson, for example, said the proposal will stimulate the economy by matching "willing workers with willing employers."<<

Matching workers willing to work for $3.50 an hour with employers willing to pay that much, most likely.

[Sabertooth]

A Bush campaign official said the administration's own internal polling shows that "a majority of Republicans do support the president's immigration policy. Does that mean everybody does? No. And ultimately this was a difficult decision."

< -snip- >

White House Deputy Press Secretary Trent Duffy said Mr. Bush proposed the plan because "it's the right thing to do." Mr. Duffy said his boss "doesn't make decisions based on polls."

Hilarious.

This is all spin; the Bush Amnesty is a debacle.

If the President's polls showed support for the Bush Amnesty, his decision wouldn't have been difficult.

If it's really "the right thing to do," the President's decision wouldn't have been difficult.

President Bush has always wanted Amnesty for Illegal Aliens. Always.

[dagnabbit]

I'd wish the pollsters had also broken out the count by who the respondants voted for in 2000. I suspect a lot more than 52 percent of Bush voters (AKA suckers) oppose this assault on our country. The pro-Amnesty crowd tilts heavily left - just like the President on the issue.

[F16Fighter]

"Once people have had a chance to educate themselves about the proposal and what it does, support for it will grow," said Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

"Grow" like what? A tumor?

Question to Christine Iverson: "Are you confusing the IQ of Republican and conservative voters with the morons who vote Democrat?"

These professional propagandists over at the RNC and GOP have become as delusional and arrogant as the DNC and Terry McAullife.

[Kay Soze]

WOW

So the "proposal" is doing in mainstream US then here on Free Republic!

Here 66% are against it.

We have alot of Freepfringers!

[Pushing W to the Right]

[ThePythonicCow]

I like Bush's proposal.

The problem of 10 million or whatever illegal immigrants already in our country cannot practically be solved by deporting them. Too many, too entrenched. It would take an effort resembling that used by Hitler to round up the Jews to deport all the illegal immigrants. Ugly, really ugly.

What needs to be done is to move the status quo toward getting everyone involved to operate legally. If you can't enforce the law, change it, in a way that is reasonably fair to the various parties involved. Better than continuing to operate with the chronic sore of mass illegality. But this requires a win-win solution, where all parties see some gain. This is hard to swallow for those who have been wronged by the illegal behaviour of others so far.

This is not simple amnesty. That is unnecessary, outrageously unearned, and doesn't change future behaviour to being legal. Rather it is a temporary worker program, with incentives for leaving when the time is up, and with additional fees, but not punative fines, for those who have been here illegally. Simply announcing those additional fees now, as Bush did, will immediately slow the flow of illegal immigrants some, as people decide to stay in their current country for now, expecting to come later for less money.

If Bush leaves his 8 years with the current massively extra-legal immigrant situation replaced with one in which most people are operating within the law, then this will be a substantial improvement.

The key remaining difficulty will be in avoiding the expense of education, social services, medical care and such for the families of temporary workers. What Bush is proposing doesn't resolve that issue, though I don't see that it makes it alot worse.

But I wouldn't reject a plan because it doesn't solve all the related problems, so long as it moves us in the right direction (respect for the law).

[dennisw]

"And so I think at the end of the day this immigration announcement was every bit as much a homeland security announcement, because of the extra measures to tighten the borders," the official said.

There are no extra measures to tighten the borders but if there are then start enforcing them now to show this is not a all a disgraceful sham. Some US troops on the border would impress me. Would impress the Mexis too and scare many off.

[MrNatural]

See Dr "Karl Rove" Doolittle go both ways with the Pushme-Pullyou, and satisfy neither end.

[dennisw]

If we don't have the gonads to deport en masse then don't legalize these invaders. Let them live as serfs. Let them live in the shadows. Let them live second class. I don't believe in rewarding illegal immigrants who invade my country making the USA into Latin America's flop house.

Reward illegal immigration with amnesty and we will get a lot more of it. Same as when you send white collar criminals to country club prisons for 15 months and you get a lot more white collar crime.

[FirstPrinciple]

"Once people have had a chance to educate themselves about the proposal and what it does, support for it will grow," said Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

Educate themselves??? What a condescending bi%^&!!! Reflects more on her level of education and manners than anything else.

[syriacus]

I think (some in) the administration saw this plan as a way to increase security, from the beginning.

To promote it that way, at first, would make it seem like Bush was only using "compassion for the illegal immigrants" as a cover for his plan.

I think this program would help us get a handle on which immigrants are dangerous. The really bad dudes will be among those immigrants who do not sign in with the government.

I don't understand the ins and outs of the proposed program...but, if, as I began to suspect last week, it aids in US security, I'm open to a discussion of the idea.

[freethistle]

I think it is really a draft registration proposal.

After a sufficient number sign up the heading at the top of the page will be changed from "Immigration" to "Draft" Registration.

[junta]

Yeah its an "economic" issue, like flooding this country with folks who while driving down wages add their names to the entitlement lists. So we'll have workers making less working than retirees sucking up SS and Mediwaste.

[WhiteGuy]

"It's not just an immigration proposal, it's also an economic proposal,"


Oh.............

That's a lie, pass the chips...............

[tracer]

My Fourth Prediction for 2004:

Bush and Fox are working out a deal involving Mexican ("it's all about") oil and a creative solution to an immigration/poverty problem -- that has as a juicy bonus a "tar baby" trap that will cause the the Dumbokrats to tumble into "de ole briar patch" as represented by a permanent loss of the heretofore robotic support of what is now America's largest minority constituent group.

Prediction Five:

I haven't quite figured out when the resultant Afro-Hispanic War will begin, but begin it will and will be a sight to behold.

Prediction Six:

The coming upheaval from the Bush-Fox accord will cause our Nations bloviated and corrupt unions to sink into the toaster and pop up for a well-deserved buttering.

Prediction Seven:

The Saudis and their Arabic fellow travellers soon will attempt to be very chummy with that old infidel Uncle Sam, who will have the resources to protect from al Qaeda and Associates only the oil fields of Iraq and Kuwait, our soon-to-be sister nations that will serve as the base of operations for the "stabilization" of the Middle East.

Prediction Eight:

The US will through the Saudis to the al Qaeda wolves. Said wolves will exterminate the "worldly, secular infidels" that make up the Saudi royal family, put that nation in the firm grip of Islamofascism, trash their oil fields in a show of bravado, and will never be allowed to redevelop them (they will be drained from under the sands via natural connections between oil deposits.

Prediction Nine:

Having killed the "goose that laid the golden egg," al Qaeda and other terrorist groups will (a) see their funding and geopolitical support dry up and blow away amid the desert winds.

Prediction Ten:

Al Qaeda and their fellow travelers (Hamas, PLA, etc.) will be hunted down and killed like the dogs that they are -- by the US and its new allies in the Middle East and in what will be a European continent that already is seeing and feeling the beginnings of their strangulation by rabid subsets within the "Religion of Peace."

And the world will be a better place for many decades to come -- all because of the genius of a Republican US administration run by "naive and ignorant cowboys who care only about oil and other manifestations of Big Business".....

[PigRigger]

"The difficulties come from conservatives who are angry at the proposal, which they say rewards illegal behavior..."

No I don't like it because it does not stop anyone from coming over the borders illegally in the future.

"at the end of the day this immigration announcement was every bit as much a homeland security announcement, because of the extra measures to tighten the borders..."

What a bunch of BS. Where and how does it make our borders more secure?

The only ones who will register will be the ones who don't wish us harm. How will this prevent those who wish to come across the border without registering?

I support Bush when it comes to his foreign policy initiatives, but his domestic policies leave me scratching my head sometimes.

[MattAMiller]

"Once people have had a chance to educate themselves about the proposal and what it does, support for it will grow," said Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

I agree. I expected liberals to hate this plan because they don't want anything that won't make illegals permanent legal residents as easily as possible. But I'm surprised by how much opposition it has met here.

I think people are getting hung up on the "amnesty" portion of the proposal. This is not like the 1986 amnesty, I would vehemently oppose such a plan. It forgives past illegal behavior. But I do not consider that illegal behavior to be so awfull that it can't be overlooked in the name of practicality as long as some distinction is made between those who have obeyed the law and those who have broken it. And I don't consider this particular aspect the most important part of the proposal.

[Zipporah]

"Once people have had a chance to educate themselves about the proposal and what it does, support for it will grow," said Christine Iverson, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee"

..LIARS!!!!!! the whole lot of them.. The more people know the LESS support the proposal will have.