Posted on 11/22/2004 5:26:41 AM PST by Marine Inspector
Vow comes during meeting with Mexican president in Chile
SANTIAGO, Chile -- President Bush vowed Sunday to push a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States as guest workers even though it appears less likely to win backing in a Congress that grew more conservative in this month's elections.
Bush made the commitment during a half-hour meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox in the Chilean capital, where the two leaders are attending the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation conference. But neither Bush nor his aides could offer any details of where the plan stood on Capitol Hill.
"I told President Fox that I had campaigned on this issue," Bush told reporters as he sat with Fox in the Hyatt Regency hotel in an upscale Santiago neighborhood with views of the snow-capped Andes mountains.
"I made it very clear my position that we need to make sure that where there's a willing worker and a willing employer, that that job ought to be filled legally in cases where Americans will not fill that job," Bush said.
The encounter brought the two neighbors full circle on the most complex and contentious issue between them. Bush and Fox began their terms within months of each other promising reforms to ease the flow of migrants across their 2,000-mile border. But the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, quickly pushed immigration off a Washington agenda that came to be dominated by security.
On Sunday, Bush conceded a point that Fox and his aides have been making: that legalizing the flow of large numbers of immigrants would free the U.S. Border Patrol to concentrate on terrorists, drug smugglers and other security threats.
"We share a mutual concern to make sure our border is secure," Bush said. "One way to make sure the border is secure is to have reasonable immigration policies."
Bush said Sunday he was undeterred by congressional opposition and intended to change minds by "working it."
"I'm going to find supporters on the Hill and move it," he told reporters Sunday night, during a news conference with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos at the presidential palace.
Asked about a letter sent to him by 21 U.S. lawmakers claiming the plan was essentially an amnesty program for undocumented workers, Bush said he was unfazed.
"I get letters all the time from people that are trying to steer me one way or the other when it comes to legislation," the president said. "But I'm going to move forward. In the letter, I noticed that they said, well, this is because ... they're objecting to the program because it's an amnesty program. It's not an amnesty program; it's a worker program."
A senior U.S. official, who briefed reporters on condition that his name not be used, said the administration had begun "consultations up on the Hill, and this is going to be part of the president's legislative agenda for this coming session of the Congress."
Bush's plan, not yet written into a bill, would be the first overhaul of U.S. immigration rules in 18 years. It would allow three-year work visas for an undetermined number of the millions of immigrants living illegally in the United States.
Guest workers could then apply for permanent legal status, but their applications would have to include letters from employers assuring that the migrants were filling jobs that could not be filled by U.S. citizens.
Bush announced the plan in January, when it appeared that states with heavy Latino populations -- Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona -- would be crucial to his re-election. Republican strategists hoped that having the president back a moderate immigration policy would boost the party's performance among that fast-growing bloc of voters.
But the plan quickly came under criticism from within Bush's party. Rather than alienate his conservative Republican base, Bush did not pursue the issue in Congress and mentioned it only occasionally during the campaign, mostly to Latino audiences.
Exit polls showed the strategy might have worked, with Bush's 45 percent share of traditionally Democratic Latino vote, a 7 percent increase over 2000.
Conservatives and labor-union officials oppose Bush's plan because they believe it would help immigrants take jobs from U.S. workers. Immigrant advocates fear that the plan would give too much power to employers in deciding migrant workers' fate. And some congressional Republicans also worry that it would encourage more Mexicans to cross into the United States.
Rep. Thomas Tancredo, R-Colo., one of the leading GOP critics of the Bush plan, said earlier this month that, "without first securing our borders from the mass flow of illegal immigration, any guest-worker proposal is totally unworkable."
Mindful of such opposition, Secretary of State Colin Powell cautioned Mexican officials this month that progress on immigration issues would depend as much on the new Congress as on the administration.
"We don't want to over-promise," Powell said.
Members of Congress who support immigration reform say that no change is possible without strong presidential leadership.
Asked Sunday about the strength of Bush's commitment, Fox told CNN: "He is willing to lead and conduct ahead with the appropriate political timing. He has the will in trying to work this thing out."
Fox, who supports legalized status for the estimated 5 million undocumented Mexicans living in the United States, said he hopes to travel to Washington as early as February to "finish off some of these issues we've been discussing, perhaps putting them in the shape of some form of agreement."
Wallsten reported from Chile and Boudreaux from Mexico City.
Keep up with the news. Since mexico now able to ID their illegals here in the US, I guess they have a better count on them than we do. Mexico papers reporting 10 MILLION illegal mexicans here waiting for the next *reward*.
"Fox hopes to re-energize discussions with the U.S. leader on a possible migration accord that would move towards regularizing the status of an estimated 10 million Mexicans residing in the United States illegally."
You and your Border Patrol pals blew the coverage the last 10 years. We've got to do something to atone for your incompetence.
This stupid comment doesn't even deserve a reply.
Mexico papers reporting 10 MILLION mexicans here want "regularized". So my guess is at least 15 million illegals in the USA.
'Bout right, our gov't can't even count 'em, but they're ready to 'regularize' them.
I would like to believe that President Bush is just nieve when it comes to this, but more and more I am starting to believe that he and Fox are in cahoots to turn the US into another Mexican cesspool.
Exactly. If the people pushing this legislation were real capitalists, they would let the "market" bear the price of labor - which means they would have to pay more. But no, they are importing damn near slave labor and driving American's wages down.
We are stuck with this, folks, for at least four years and maybe longer. By 2050 the country will probably be majority-Hispanic. That's a demographic reality, because Hispanic women right now have the highest fertility rate among all subgroups of Americans: 3 children per woman. That's double the 1.4 children per woman for Euro-ancestry Americans, and higher even than 2.5 per woman *in Mexico.*
There is NO way the GOP is going to turn its back on Hispanic voters at this point. So conservatives have some choices: break off from the GOP and try to form a "nativist" party - which would just about insure Democrat electoral success. Or go with the political flow. Or start having 5-6 children per family (which is the most pie-in-the-sky assumption of all.) There are not a lot of options here, realistically.
Bush and the GOP is making a big mistake if they think that they got any extra votes from hispanics for this amnesty program. Hispanics voted for Bush based on values - many are catholic and unlike blacks will vote their the principles of their faith.
This isn't the only issue in the universe. He's also spending his political capital on cleaning up the CIA and State, along with a myriad of other items that he will address.
Yes, it's always oil. Like the war in Iraq....right?
Not
Yes. They despise the sound of the Spanish language being spoken.
It's a sickness they have.
This was darned near a deal breaker for me.
Bush is lucky that Kerry is such a thoroughly comtemptible character.
My own take is that Bush has some sort of personal hangup that the rest of us get to pay for.
Barlowmaker must be having a bad morning.
Every comment he's posted today on other threads has been antagonistic.
Maybe he had to sleep on the couch last night.
I've already abandoned the Republican Party, because of immigration.
ping
Taking care of his own people, would mean stopping corruption, which is the same as taking all of his money and giving it to the people. He's not about to do that.
It's easier to send the problem north and have it send money south to him.
A guest worker program will never work, with out controlling the border first or making sure we can enforce our employment laws.
I agree.
I voted for Bush.
I didn’t, because I knew he would do this.
any guest worker visa must be NONCONVERTABLE to another status. A guest worker may not apply for permanent residency or citizenship.
Guest means guest, they will leave.
If they want a permanent status they have to apply through their home countries' US consolates.
(the same rule exists now with the visa waver program)
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