DeLay Sees Chance of Immigration Deal(Time to Email DeLay!)

The New York Times ^ | 2/9/2005 | staff

[kellynla]

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 - Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, said Tuesday that conservatives might be able to compromise with President Bush on his proposal allowing illegal immigrants to work in the United States legally.

Such a compromise could entail, for example, requiring illegal immigrants to return to their native countries to apply for the program, Mr. DeLay said.

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Mr. DeLay said he talked recently with the president, who has advocated a guest worker program that would be open to workers who are currently in the country illegally as well as to newcomers.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

That's pretty much what I was afraid of. Thanks for the information.

Now it's up to Congress to say no thanks.

[Pa' fuera]

No one is getting any preferential treatment. There is only one line for guest workers. Do you understand the difference between "immigrants" and "guest workers". Immigrants come here to spend the rest of their lives here and become citizens. Guest workers just want to work here until they can afford to return home.

There may be two lines as you say, but they're line jumping whichever one you choose. Anyway, our illegal immigrant population, from the looks of things, are in "immigrant" mode - since their numbers are constantly increasing. The dream of returning home is precisely that - a dream. They'll probably be buried in Mexico, but that's about it. That may have not been their intention at the start, but it is now their reality. And that's just another reason why shoe-horning them into a guest worker program won't work. A half-dozen or dozen years in the US is not going to put them far enough ahead to where they'll head back to Mexico. We're not seeing that in practice.

[EagleMamaMT]

Let's hope Congress has the guts to stand firm and say "no way!"

[bayourod]

So what if they stay? If we need their labor then they need to stay.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

You can blame all the problems on unions if you want, over the years they did tend to become greedy and lazy and demanded way too much from employers. NY lost a lot of businesses as they moved South to escape the unions.

But even if you did completely away with them companies would still be hard-pressed to find Americans willing to work for minimum wage with no benefits as illegals are.

So yes they are driving down wages and forcing Americans to compete with an illegally imported labor pool. Take illegals out of the picture and you'd see wages slowly rise.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Let's hope Congress has the guts to stand firm and say "no way!"

Delay's comments today were not encouraging but we got to keep on these politicians. No one I talk to wants anything to do with another guest worker program.

[Pa' fuera]

So what if they stay? If we need their labor then they need to stay.

Well, we don't need their labor, so they can go home and enrich Vicente Fox's economy. We can phase them out and get citizens or legal workers to replace them.

[Iscool]

I view them as relieving pressures that force wages up beyond that of a normal market.

HaHaHa...You got to be a politician with double-speak like that...

[cassie22]

Unions are hiring "undocumented" immigrants.

[bayourod]

"We can phase them out and get citizens or legal workers to replace them. "

Legal workers are what a guest worker program is all about.

How old are you?

[BJungNan]

Immigration deal!? What deal? We need a deal to keep people from entering this country illegally.

If the Republicans do not get this issue in hand and quickly, they will find themselves in trouble starting with the next election. This one can not be ignorned. There is no deal to make.

[FBD]

You've had some very good posts here, Kelly.

Thanks for your courage, and thank you for your service to our country in the Marines!

Regards

[cassie22]

...so they can go home and enrich Vicente Fox's economy.

On average $15 billion a year in remittances flow from the US to Mexico annually, benefiting the Mexican economy.

[ichabod1]

All the employer has to do is be vewy vewy quiet about the job so no American knows about it, or require the applicant to be a fluent speaker of spanish. That's why this crap about jobs Americans won't do is such malarky. It's a scam.

[FBD]

That amnesty comparison tables of the various bills in Congress is very good! (post #44)

[Pa' fuera]

On average $15 billion a year in remittances flow from the US to Mexico annually, benefiting the Mexican economy.

And all that has done is to increase Mexican immigration to the US. I wonder how much of those remittances actually become seed money to finance chain migration (i.e. pay the bus fare, coyote, tourist visa application fees, etc.)?

[cassie22]

Good question! LOL

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

W. shuts up about burying the nation in illegals and Delay promises not to impeach him.

Yea like that would happen........

[winker]

He needs to lay aside his "Partisan" card and get back in the issues that are about to bury all of us. Here we have another Gingrich clone who lost his way!

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: DeLay blinked?

This 1998 article says DeLay favored guest workers way back then.

"House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX) has vowed to create a guest worker program for Mexican workers in the United States. DeLay is especially concerned about severe worker shortages in the garment industry. . .According to DeLay, the lack of a guest worker program is forcing many companies to move operations out of the United States."

http://www.visalaw.com/98feb/04feb98.html