Posted on 11/27/2005 6:17:30 AM PST by Borax Queen
Guest-worker plan to top Monday agenda
Hoping to straddle a fracture in the Republican Party, President Bush is due in Tucson on Monday to promote his border and immigration policies.
The 2:40 p.m. speech at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is the president's only scheduled stop here.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff are expected to appear with the president at D-M.
With the backing of businesses who need foreign employees, Bush is pushing a guest-worker program that would let undocumented workers obtain three-year work visas. Workers could extend that for another three years, but would then have to return to their home countries for a year to apply for a new work permit.
"Our Border Patrol and immigration agents are doing a fine job, but we still have a problem," Bush said in his Oct. 22 radio address.
"If an employer has a job that no American is willing to take, we need to find a way to fill that demand by matching willing employers with willing workers from foreign countries on a temporary and legal basis."
The proposal has alienated many conservative Republicans who feel it gives amnesty to people who have entered the country illegally.
There are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.
Competing guest-worker proposals have been introduced in Congress, which is expected to take up the contentious issue early next year:
- Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., support legislation that would allow illegal border crossers to work in the United States for up to six years.
- Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, are backing a plan that would force undocumented workers to first return to their home country to apply for a guest worker permit.
- Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., wants to grant legal status to undocumented workers who have paid taxes and lived in the United States for five years if they pass security checks, pay a $2,000 fine and demonstrate English proficiency.
Rank-and-file Republicans may be less divided on the immigration issue than GOP politicians in Washington, D.C.
An October poll of 807 likely Republican voters found 72 percent supported a plan with increased border security, tougher penalties on employers who hire illegal workers and a temporary worker program in which applicants could gain citizenship if they live crime-free, learn English and pay taxes. GOP pollster Ed Goeas conducted the national survey.
Bush signed a spending bill for Homeland Security last month that includes funding for 1,000 new Border Patrol agents and a 10 percent increase in the holding capacity of detention facilities for border crossers.
Earlier this month, Chertoff unveiled Homeland Security's Secure Border Initiative, which will add 100 deportation officers, 250 criminal investigators and 400 immigration enforcement agents to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The initiative also seeks to eliminate the department's policy of releasing border crossers with a promise to appear in court. Most of these entrants never show up for hearings under the so-called "catch and release" policy.
Tune in to see Bush on TV
-Tucsonans who want to see President Bush during his visit to town Monday will have to turn on their televisions.
Bush's speech at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base will not be open to the public.
"He's not leaving the base, so nothing will be affected as far as road closures," said Officer Lisa Peasley, a Tucson Police Department spokeswoman.
KVOA-TV Channel 4 and KGUN-TV Channel 9 plan to carry Bush's 2:40 p.m. speech live.
well if the DNC has certified the truth - if I were you I would get a second opinion. Only the lazy are desperate and it appears the democrats have most of them.
Lighten up - see truth!
What do you have against donuts? If you don't like them don't eat them but don't keep others from the freedom to have donuts.
What do you have against donuts? If you don't like them don't eat them but don't keep others from the freedom to have donuts.
That's easy- these are the businesses that pay off a corrupt political class.
That phrase is Clintonian.
How's the illegal alien situation doing in Pennsylvania, Dane?
Do you still have more Open Border cheerleaders than illegals in your State?
At least you have finally offered an excuse for your support of illegal immigration. Fencing stolen goods also provides cheaper costs- maybe supporting property crime can be the next big idea for the Open Border Lobby if you get your wish and the "guest worker" amnesty passes.
Dane has posted that he/she lives in Pennsylvania, and once dined at a Taco Bell. It's interest in border issues appears to be motivated by RNC cheerleading. Dane is a great humanitarian, and will willingly sacrifice your neighborhood if it furthers the RNC's ethnic pandering.
You're so full of crap. No one here has any hatred of small businesses that produce good products and services. What we have is anger at business who break the law and engage in unfair business practices. We hate businesses whose unfair business practices and lawbreaking may result it larger profits for the business owner, and rarely lower prices to the consumer, that end up passing the costs on to the taxpayer and those who live in communities which are inundated by criminal invaders. And most of our hatred lies in those who aid and abet these lawbreaking invaders in coming across our borders and staying here - people like you who enable and defend the criminal invaders while pretending to be a conservative or a Republican.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Have to admit it Dane. You have more oral traction than anyone else here!!!
A-ha, thank you for explaining.
Welfare and social security taxes have become so distorted because of rampant abuse of both. Has nothing to do with "the market price" or the market as a whole.
I see it differently. The ones tearing the GOP apart aren't even card carrying members of the GOP.
A president who can only show his face on a military base in the reddest of red states is in deep trouble.
There is a govt. mandated ceiling. It's called national borders. It's called citizenship.
Precisely.
A business that cannot be profitable operating within the law should not exist.
Was this meant for me or dane?
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