[DTogo]

Bush's concession meant that Congress will begin the year on an anti-immigration note, which promises to continue as many of those pushing for the tough enforcement measures also are likely to oppose the president's "guest worker" plan.

Rubbish! Congress will hopefully begin on an anti-illegal alien note. Nobody is against lawful immigration.

[Sterco]

There is no doubt. This is a hot-button issue. The White House really had no concept of just how devisive it is. The GOP victory was far too narrow to concede the Southwest and Western states in the next election. It is obvious by how the propostions to limit benefits to illegal aliens pass by such large majorities that it is a very crucial matter. We in the West and Southwest will not be ignored. The GOP will do well to pay attention to it's "law abiding" voting citizenship rather than the open borders minority.

[longtermmemmory]

Opposition is being foolish because they are not working to establish that ANY temporary status is not convertable to permanent status.

Change will happen. Why not ensure that temp workers can ONLY apply from their home country? Why not ensure the non-convertability of temp workers? Why not ensure that ANY illegal is permanently ineligible for citizenship?

The debate can be used to get the message out. If we don't have this debate, the democrats will be happy to leave millions of illegals flooding across the borders.

[Prime Choice]

[Condor51]

"The key prong in Bush's plan is a temporary-worker program that would offer the nation's estimated 10 million illegal immigrants a chance to earn legal status that would allow them to stay in the country as long as six years."

And naturally, these 10 Million CRIMINALS will all of a sudden start obeying the law and go home after six years?!? Ok, sure, I'll buy that

Then again, since murder rates are dropping in all the big cities, we do need 'immigrants' who'll now do that work "which Americans refuse to do"!

[26lemoncharlie]

The idea is to make the system respond to the fact that we have an integrated labor market that interacts with Mexico and Central America," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrants' rights group. "You are trying to transform it from a black market, chaotic, hard-to-control flow to a more orderly, regulated flow."

This guy is the Problem. He and his group are more concerned about the rights of the Illegal Immigrants and filling the Jobs with cheap illegal workers than he is about the Security of the United States ans it's Citizens, and the Enforcement of the Immigration Laws. Once again the Citizens of the the United States, the people who bear the burden of the TAXES to pay for all of this crap cannot get the Eletist A$$E$ that we voted into Office to Control our own Borders and Control Who comes into this country!!

Time to go to Washington and Let them know how we really feel! Anyone except Hildebeast running for Office in 2006 that will Control Our Borders I'm looking real hard. Time to get these bums who will not carryout there most important Constitutional Duty MUST be replaced!!

[FITZ]

"The idea is to make the system respond to the fact that we have an integrated labor market that interacts with Mexico and Central America," said Frank Sharry,

Why do we want to integrate our labor market with countries where $0.25 an hour is considered pretty good wages?

[sweetliberty]

"It's a compassionate way to treat people who come to our country. It recognizes the reality of the world in which we live,"

NO! It is a reward for criminals and a slap in the face to those who try to come here by legal means.

"Attempts to stem the tide by building a fence and beefing up patrols along the southwestern border have only shifted much of the flow of illegal immigrants east from California, often to the rugged Arizona desert."

Fence the whole freakin' border....with a high electrified fence topped with barbed wire. As much money as we waste on "programs" for these people, we could easily do it with money to spare.

[somniferum]

A great concern of mine is that this is just an end run around the H1-B visa program. While most of the discussion seems centered around Mexican migrants doing unskilled/manual labor, everything Ive read seems to indicate this would also allow companies to import unlimited amounts of foreign engineers, IT workers,etc. The net effect would be to totally destroy our domestic engineering capacity.

I'm graduating next year with an Information Systems degree. If this goes into effect am I going to be competing with a limitless supply of Indian IT workers willing to work for peanuts?

The good thing from my point is that I'm still young, and I'm not married. I'm probably going to some sort of graduate school, but trying to a find a 'safe' field to go into and still earn a decent living looks increasingly hard.

[Arpege92]

Maybe we should send Bush a hearing aid, because it's obvious he's not listening to the people who put him into office TWICE!!!!

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

One reason why the illegal alien problem is mushrooming is because the Boosh administration is holding out to border jumpers the tantalizing promise of a partial amnesty.

[CaptainK]

When the new Congress commences this month, key House Republicans are promising to push legislation to complete a controversial fence along the Mexican border near San Diego, to make it tougher for immigrants to attain asylum and to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving driver's licenses. At the insistence of Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis. -- and with the White House's approval -- Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., has promised to attach those measures "to the first must-pass legislation" that moves in the House next month.

Watch. If this legislation passes it will probably be the first veto Bush uses.