If the ILLEGAL aliens here are required to go back home and re-apply for a guest worker visa to re-enter the U.S. legally, that's fine with me. If they are here ILLEGALLY and granted a visa so they can stay/work here without paying any penalty, nor are their employers for hiring them ILLEGALLY, that is amnesty.
I'm happier with the idea of fingerprints and retinascans, etc, for future foreign citizenship applicants- including any under any *amnesty* programs. Then, as followup, any apprehended or identified as not being in the resulting database can be deported, barred for life from any reentry, and facing a reasonable punishment of 10 years or so if caught trying again, with reward programs and 800-number tiplines for those who spot them. If after a ten-year stretch they try again, double it, and double that for a third time out. Fourth time constitutes primae facie evidence of espionage/sabatoge directed against the US; whether dealt with by life imprisonment or a death penalty is a minor detail to be worked out.
Here is a link to a Fox News story about President Bush's guest worker proposal: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,107707,00.html .
Here are some highlights from that story:
"The program would be open to all undocumented workers now in the United States. Applicants who can show they have a job — or for those still in their home countries, a job offer — would get an initial three-year work permit that would be renewable for an unspecified period. . . .
"Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez welcomed the proposal, but said the United States needs a more concrete plan to help migrants.
"But workers accepted into the program would be allowed to immediately, with an employer's sponsorship, begin applying for a green card, which allows permanent U.S. residency. Although these workers would get no advantage over other applicants already in the long line for green cards, an illegal immigrant who attempted to apply now would simply be deported.
"With about half the illegal immigrants estimated to be from Mexico, the program was designed in part to win Bush increased support among the powerful Hispanic voting bloc in the November presidential election. He won just over one-third of that constituency in 2000."
Illegal aliens accepted into President Bush's "program would be allowed to immediately, with an with an employer's sponsorship, begin applying for a green card, which allows permanent U.S. residency."
President Bush's program would reward millions of illegal aliens with a job. Those millions of illegal aliens would immediately be able to begin applying for a green, which allows permaent residency. The millions of illegal aliens that President Bush will reward will not be deported and most certainly not be prosecuted for the immigration crime or crimes they have committed.
Just for the record, in many areas potential employers are not permitted to ask enough questions to establish legal status without getting sued (and losing) for discrimination. All they can ask is that you show a Social Security card, which is pretty easy to buy counterfeit).