Posted on 12/26/2004 1:20:04 PM PST by 4.1O dana super trac pak
President Bush says he wants to revamp an immigration system that is "not working" and is "not compassionate" through a program that can't work and would be anything but "compassionate" to Americans forced to pick up the tab.
During his end-of-the-year news conference, the president formally revived his expanded "guest worker" proposal first laid out as a set of "principles" a year ago. But the Bush plan is quite unprincipled and, by any other name, another in a long line of amnesty programs. Bush confidante and former Montana Gov. Mark Raciot disputed that characterization to me during the fall campaign. But that's exactly what it is. And it will do what amnesty programs do best - fail.
Details of the president's plan go to Capitol Hill next month. Mr. Bush wants to allow illegal aliens - up to 8 million if not more - to hold jobs here "legally" by issuing "temporary worker cards." American workers would not be hurt, the president insists; these legalized illegals would fill jobs that U.S. firms supposedly can't fill.
Not only will the administration proposal "take the pressure off" Border Patrol agents who should be "chasing crooks and thieves and drug runners and terrorists," the president said these illegals are innocuous, "good-hearted people." All they want to do is "put food on the table...Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River."
But apparently common sense does.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
That's not what the polls show.
Sometime recently (since Bush has been in office) I read that our gov't had settled with the gov't of Mexico the matter of retirement funds withheld from Mexican workers from the last guest worker program we had. The retiring and retired workers in Mexico were threatening all sorts of mayhem against their gov't because it was not paying them the promised retirement benefits. Seems that the Mexican gov't had "lost" the funds we sent the first time years ago, so we paid them AGAIN! Can hardly wait until they start collecting SS for having worked (or not worked) here. Shouldn't be but a few years until everybody in Mexico gets a SS check every month.
President Bush is proposing the right thing, and conservatives have good reasons for getting behind him to DO the right thing.
Have you really done your homework on this subject?
COEXERJ145 is just an agitator on these illegal immigration threads. He/she never has anything relevent to say on the subject. Instead, COEXERJ145 just likes to stop by to insult other FReepers and make false accusations.
I've kept my eyes open for quite some time, but by no means does that mean I know it all. Always possible to learn more, and even something that would turn me around. But this is where I am. The bad guys (muslims) can be given more attention when all these other people don't have to crawl across the border.
Yes, the polls are so reliable. The people don't want illegal immigration, don't want to pay for it, but they do want those folks to work for them. $150 billion worth in a year.
RE: (2) Peace and Stability.
RE: (3) Social Security and Economic Growth.
RE: (4) No Troops or Walls on the Border!
Thank you you for offering cogent arguments supporting the President. But then you were there as the modern conservative movement developed.
I do not support the "guest worker" plan -- of course no one has seen the details. My Congressman's staff called it the "Fair and Security Immigration Reform" bill but so far nothing more is known apparently.
I am not confident that the host country (that's us) will in fact receive the tax revenue in the out years, point (3). No doubt we will in the beginning if the act becomes law. I am reading a lot about migrant labor all over the world and there are efforts afoot to establish a kind of WTO for migrant labor.
Don't know the actual name for the evolving migrant labor movement but I believe it is something like a developing country's "economic diaspora". Surely the source country will demand something from their "citizens beyond borders." The host country gets their "cheap" labor benefits. Remittances especially "group remittances" are a kind of taxation. I expect the source countries will demand something more formal.
Any kind of formal agreement may make it easier to come under the control of a GATT-like or WTO-like entity.
I'm in a border state. Lived in San Diego for 30 years. You are right, no one wants to pay for social services for illegals. Heck, I don't want to pay for legals to have social services! But you cannot deny that $150 billion is a whole lot of labor that our gov't, of the People, is doing nothing to control. Your view of the situation is a tad simplistic.
<< The voters want these folks working here. And they are voting with their pocketbooks and the candidates they vote to represent them. Illegal MIGRATION is not a problem with the vast majority of voters. >>
Wrong!
The criminal breaching of America's international boundaries by the thousands every day every one of whose very first action in America is to take a dump on our nation's sovereign border, is -- as you put it -- "a problem" for approximately 80% of Americans -- including around 50% of those known as "hispanics!"
Come on Mr President you are not being honest with yourself so guess where that leaves the nation.
The butt of a cruel joke that has the potential for the destruction of this nation's Sovereignty hence its Identity and finally its very existence!
Please do not continue down this path of self inflicted destruction from which there can be no reclamation of all that made this nation the magnificent and unequaled United States of America!
And for which many at this very moment are with much sacrifice and suffering dying with unquestioning loyality!
Please keep the faith with these wonderful men and women and in the name of our Holy God do not fail them!
If you have no vetting process today, why do you think a "guest worker" program will magically create one ? If enforcement is a lax priority now, why assume that it will magically become priority #1 then ?
You are right, voters don't want Mexican criminals, they want honest Mexican laborers!
I guess you believe the polls over the voting booth too.
The people favor the death penalty. But how many executions ever actually take place ? The people favor school prayer. But what chance is there of that ?
Elites can frustrate the will of the people. Elites who are interested in cheap labor and a left-leaning voting base.
You got it backwards. The elites only get away with what the people allow them too.
No. Elites know each other. Elites write the rules.
The political system has tremendous inertia because it takes a while for public opinion to force elites to capitulate. Just like it took a full blown political crisis to force European elites to acknowledge that multiculturalism wasn't working and public opinion was demanding that stern immigration controls be put in place (did you ever think there was a pro-immigration majority among the European people ? No there never was.). You have mistakenly interpreted inertia as approval.
Where did I say anything about magic?
Would it not be better to have the vetting process first, then the "guest worker" program, if any ? Would not a "vetting process" now assure Americans about any "guest worker" program later ?
You're talking about three steps, including the low level disruption of the economy. Using the guestworker program as the "vetting" process costs less, creates a smaller disruption and because of the theoretical reduction in illegal cross border travel allows the overburdened/underfunded border patrol to use it's resources more effectivly.
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