Yes, it is amnesty.
Amnesty is defined as "A general pardon granted by a government, especially for political offenses."
Our immigration laws are federal laws, and violating them is an affront to the sovereignty of our nation, as well as the individual states. To forgive that offense by granting legal status to these criminals is an amnesty. Deny it all you want, but you can’t change that simple fact.
Dividing the GOP over this proposal is juvenile at best and suicidal at worst, Some of the comments I have seen on these threads can only be compared to those losers over at DU, and I think we are much better than that.
If anyone is dividing the GOP is is the president; it's certainly not me. And if you think we should all walk the same walk it is you who belongs at DU.
If the proposal said: all illegals in the USA are hereby notified that you must come forth and face hefty fines, deportation and a good old fashion Caning by the 20 or so Freepers who hate your guts. After that we invite you to enroll in our guest worker program that denies you any path to become a citizen of this country despite the fact that you already faced justice."
The plain fact is that they are already here and they all didn't come here on January 20th, 2001. We can't possibly think we can dragnet the entire country and deport them all, we need to urge all those who have personal knowledge of this problem to come forth and exchange their views on how we address this problem, But condemning President Bush for having the courage to get this debate started is counter productive and IMHO, the chicken shit way dealing with a problem that has to be addressed