Posted on 12/09/2004 10:02:15 AM PST by nanak
12 Questions the White House Must Answer About Bush's Temporary Worker Plan
President Bush announced in a meeting with Mexico's President Vicente Fox in November that he will give "high priority" in 2005 to his guest worker plan that will grant legal status to the four to six million Mexican nationals (and others) now working in the United States illegally. That proposal was first announced in January of 2004 as a set of "principles."
However, since it was never introduced in Congress as legislation, no details are known about the plan. The public needs answers to the many questions raised by the proposal. Among those questions are the following:
QUESTIONS ABOUT AMNESTY
1. The president says his plan does not offer amnesty to lawbreakers, but if an unlawful act is forgiven and not penalized, is that not the same as amnesty? Isn't it amnesty if people who entered our country illegally are not required to go home before applying for a work permit?
2. Why is it not reasonable to believe that offering a "legal route to employment" for people who entered the country illegally will only encourage millions more to follow the same path in the expectation that they, too, will eventually be offered legal status? Is The White House aware that the National Border Patrol Council, which represents rank and file Border Patrol agents, says the president's plan will produce another surge in illegal alien traffic?
NATIONAL SECURITY
3. The president says that his plan will free up the Border Patrol to catch drug smugglers and terrorists. In view of the very real terrorist threat facing our nation and the certainty that terrorists are well aware of how easy it is to cross our open borders, would it not be more sensible and much safer for the country to first make our borders secure and then experiment with new guest worker programs, rather than the other way around?
4. What about the 150,000 people coming across our borders each year from outside Mexico, hundreds of them from countries on the State Department's watch list of nations known to harbor terrorists? Why is border security taking a backseat to a temporary worker program?
JOBS
5. The president says his temporary worker plan will be limited to "jobs Americans won't do." But since willingness to do any job is always relative to the wages being offered for that job, isn't it true that millions of jobs will be lost by Americans to foreign labor willing to work at a lower wage? When an employer lowers the wage of a job so only a foreign worker will take the job, as is already happening in construction trades and many other occupations, how can anyone say this is not taking jobs away from Americans?
6. The president frequently describes his plan as one that "will match willing workers with willing employers." Since his plan puts no limits on the types of jobs to be included, isn't it likely that employers will find additional millions of "willing workers" to fill millions of jobs at lower wages?
WHAT IS A "TEMPORARY WORKER"?
7. The president says his plan will allow "temporary workers" to take jobs for a three year term, renewable to six years. If a worker signs up for the program to obtain legal employment and works six years, but then does not want to go home because he now has a wife and also three children born in the United States, will the plan require him to go home? If he returns home, what happens to his wife and children?
8. If the temporary worker is not required to go home after his term of employment expires, then isn't it more accurate to call the president's plan a new immigration program with built-in preference for immigrants from Mexico and Central America? If a "temporary worker" is allowed to file an application for citizenship and to remain in the United States after his temporary work permit expires, is this not really an immigration program and not a temporary worker program?
ENFORCEMENT POLICIES
9. The president says his plan will include stepped up enforcement of labor laws to punish employers who continue to hire illegal workers. But isn't it true that this same promise was made to Congress and the American people in 1986 and that promise was never kept?
10. Since current laws against hiring illegal workers are virtually unenforceable, what specific changes is the president proposing to curtail and penalize this employment practice? Will employers be required to verify a valid Social Security number (available to any legal worker) before offering employment? Will Social Security cards be made fraud-proof? Will illegal workers who use phony Social Security cards or other people's numbers be deported and not merely fired and allowed to seek a different job as is the case today?
11. The president says that offering a legal way to find work in the U.S. will bring an end to the border problems. But if our borders are not made truly secure, won't millions of desperate people continue to enter illegally way instead of waiting in line for a work permit?
COMPETENCE AND CAPABILITIES OF OUR ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES
12. If today's Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot locate the 400,000 "absconders" who have already been ordered deported, including almost 100,000 criminal aliens, and if this enforcement agency can't intercept and deport the criminal aliens already incarcerated in our jails, nor the two million student, tourist, and other "visa overstays," why should anyone believe they will be willing and able to locate and deport an additional six to eight million "temporary workers" if these workers choose to stay when their permit expires?
If a tresspasser is allowed to continue tresspassing, but legally, is that amnesty?
If the trespasser pays a fine in court, and then gains the consent of the property owner, no.
Now, answer my question.
TOM TANCREDO is the strongest candidate our party has. A down to earth, to the point, and straight talking person. When attacked, he fights back instead of going on defensive. He is right on taxes, right on values, right on foreign policy, right on immigration, right on education, right on.....everythin we the true NATIONALIST CONSERVATIVES care about. Please check out some to TANCREDO's interviews:
Tom Tancredo on Day Side with Linda Vester
LOL No, your question just isn't relevant. Obviously if you pay a fine for speeding, that isn't amnesty, but just as obviously, that isn't analogous to what's being proposed by President Bush for illegal aliens.
If the trespasser pays a fine in court, and then gains the consent of the property owner, no.
Well, we're not talking about paying fines in court, or the consent of the property owners, we're talking about fees for an application, and a ruling by a bureaucrat on acceptance that the illegal alien may continue to trespass.
The paramount legal consequence now for an illegal alien is deportation, which ends the trespass. Under the Bush proposal, that consequence would be removed and the trespass would be legalized. That's why the proposal is an amnesty.
Tancredo has a guest worker proposal for applicants from their home countries. That's a better option, as it meets our labor needs without rewarding illegal aliens at the expense of law abiding applicants.
Yes, all true. But if he doesn't get the party's nomination and runs as an independent or third party candidate he will just siphon off votes and Hillary will be president. Mark my words.
Mr. Tacredo is Hitlery's worst nightmare.
ping
bttt
Four more years of Bush's open border government that openly disobeys the country's laws; his acquiescence to lowering the standard of living by caving to the business people who want slave wages; and the depletion of our social services by the illegals, guess I'd like to know who or what is going to be left to govern?
My opinion is that four more years like the last four years and America will be one nation with Mexico. With the Mexicans on top.
If illegal immigration isn't stopped now by our friends in Congress, our country is going to be so radically altered by the next election that neither candidate can do anything to make it right. I think Tancredo knows that, and I think that is why he said he and others are going to fight and fight hard to stop the massive invasion Bush and his supporters have brought on America.
-read later.
I hate to say this, but anyone who goes through the legal immigration process is a complete and utter idiot.
No offense to you, I know you thought you were doing the right thing - but you are going to be penalized.
I've no idea why anyone goes through the green card application process. A completely unnecessary, time consuming, and sometimes expensive endeavor.
And you run the risk of being deported (something that wouldn't happen if you had simply snuck in).
Drop out of the system, my friend. It's a suckers game.
Oh, and if I may add. Thank you for taking the time to learn the language. You are truly unique.
When was the last time the Republicans nominated a strong candidate? Who do you suggest for 2008? I like Tancredo.
"Oh, and if I may add. Thank you for taking the time to learn the language. You are truly unique."
Its truely amazing to think that there are educated, talented people out there in the world who speak English, have a job skill, and actually want to come to America to be part of the American experience, not just to latch onto all the freebies.
Hes not an idiot...just a man with some principles. We could use more of him.
We better not penalize these folks, in our quest to be 'fair' to all the rest.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON 12/08/04
DOBBS: This debate over what is effectively assimilation in this country is the at center of our Face Off tonight. Joining me from Dallas, syndicated columnist with the Dallas Morning News, Ruben Navarrette. He says Latinos are making strides in assimilating into this country.
Victor David Hanson disagrees, saying we're allowing immigrant groups to vulcanize and to separate from our mainstream population. He is a senior fellow from the Hoover Organization, joining us tonight from Palo Alto, California. ~snip~
DOBBS: The cultural right. Victor Davis Hanson, is that you?
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SR. FELLOW HOOVER INSTITUTION: I don't know. That's kind of a buzz word. But the problem is we've never had in the United States 13 million, 10 to 13 million people here illegally. Nor have we had a situation where the host has lost confidence in the powers of assimilation so that we have people who go to school and learn in two languages.
People always -- immigrants spoke their native language for a while. But because of the sheer number of people, we're having a constant pull now of first and second generation people who simply don't speak English.
By any historical marker we know what happens in places like Iraq with Shi'ites and Kurds and Sunnis, or in Rwanda or the Balkans. Anytime a person owes their allegiance to a particular language or language or tribe rather than as a nation as a whole, you start to unravel these very precious, historic bonds that keep us together. We're a nation, not cultures, but of different races that have one common culture. We're really the only successful multiracial society in the history of civilization. ~snip~
DOBBS: Victor, this issue is boiling up, as I said to Ruben, this cultural right stuff, I think personally, is nonsense. I think the cultural left is also nonsense. I think what we have, if I may say, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this, and yours as well, Ruben, we have a bunch of people with a vested interest in this subject that are distorting the reality for all of us who are not directly involved in that first or second generation of immigration into this country whether legal or illegal.
And by that, I mean, we have unions that are trying to bring in cheap labor to be exploited, frankly. We have corporate America who want to bring in cheap labor to be exploited. Both are benefiting.
And we're not even beginning to control our borders, let alone our schools or the cultural institutions, including church's, including our schools. And there's a tremendous problem.
How do we deal with it?
HANSON: I agree with you. I don't see this as a political left or right. My experience in talking to a variety of people, it's a class issue. People who are in the halls of corporate American, people in the Chicano studies departments, people in journalism, people in politics who don't live with the reality every day tend to think it's not a problem. People who try to go to school in the public schools, assimilate, they want this.
Some of the success stories Ruben is referring to came in spite of, not because of, a lot of the leadership in the Latino community that fought tooth and nail, bilingual education and ethnic identification.
One of the reasons that we're starting to recover our confidence in the melting pot in California is that the people rose up and said, no more bilingual education. They said no more ethnic identification for jobs, we're all here as Californians. And now we have this ironic Orwellian situation that, with the powers of popular culture and the revolt of the people, they've started to bring back this idea. And all of a sudden spokesmen say, see it's working. It's working despite people in the past who have tried to separate us.
DOBBS: Victor Davis Hanson, Ruben Navarrette, we thank you very much. We hope you'll both be back as we continue our examination on this. And we know you will continue to examine the issue from your perspectives, almost daily.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0412/08/ldt.01.html
Aired Dec. 8, 2004
There is lots of money to be made off of a presidential campaign, especially once you qualify for federal funding.
Buchanan can't attract any contributions because he has firmly established himself as a perinnial loser. So he will run Tancredo in his place.
Again he'll probably suck as much money out of Republican contributors as he can and then jump to a third party to prolong the contribution scam game through the general election.
Of course Tamcredo will lose his congressional seat and forever be known as a nut case loser, but the million dollars or so that he will stick in his pocket will compensate for that.
Is The White House aware that the National Border Patrol Council, which represents rank and file Border Patrol agents, says the president's plan will produce another surge in illegal alien traffic?
Yes the PRESIDENT is aware of it. Unfortunately, he is still going to ignore them.
You are nothing but La Raza's sock puppet.
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