[Ben Ficklin]

Those are the details that Bush left up up Congress.

If Congress, for some unknown reason, were to hash out those details, they would probably resemble the H5A and H5B proposed by McK, but without the Green Card language, of course.

[mthom]

Bush, Chertoff, as well as many surrogates have repeatedly called for the border traffic caused by workers to be diverted to legitimate ports of entry thus making it clear that anyone jumping the border illegally is a criminal of some sort who couldnt qualify, drug runner, or terrorist. The difference between this position and one that supports a free flow of labor is semantic at best.

[Ben Ficklin]

No, Bush first made that offer in 2004.

The premise behind offering to allow a rise in naturalization is one of compromise. If the dems would abandon their position of converting the illegals(10-20 million) to greencard holders to naturalization to citizen, Bush would a back, let's say for discussion purposes, a 1 million increase in naturalization.

That's a good compromise, especially if it would split enough dems away from the official party position.