McCain guest worker plan gets national support (We the voters have lost)

The Phoenix Business Journal ^ | 10/22/2006 | Mike Sunnucks

[untrained skeptic]

I do think we need to phase in more temporary legal immigration as we make our immigration laws more enfrocable. However, the 10 million illegal immigrants need to go. If they want to apply to come and work here legally, they need to go back to their home country and apply from there.

We need to restore respect for our immigration laws. That means we need to enforce those laws in a fair and consistent manner. It is not fair or consistent to reward those who came here illegally and give them priority in a guest worker system.

They must be deported. If they go willingly, they we could generously allow them to still apply to the guest worker program. If we have to seek them out and aprehend them, they should be banned from applying, if not permenantly, at least for a considerable number of years.

[Souled_Out]

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"We have lost this battle to the very officials we elected."

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No, the battle continues the Republicans have just lost their battle to be the majority party.

[narby]

the businesses that hire illegals now, paying cash and paying no taxes - will simply continue to do so.

Not if the proper "carrot and stick" policies are enacted. If it is easer (cheaper) to hire a legal worker than risk the fines of hiring an illegal worker, or of a worker being here illegally, then only legal workers will be hired.

No "guest worker" program has a prayer of working unless it is combined with some "stick" component that will make that balance work.

[oceanview]

pass a guest worker program, and you will see the largest movement to unionize various industries in this country since the 1920s.

[af_vet_rr]

There are a multiplicity of reasons to churn a party hierarchy, not limited to supplying candidates with national experience to serve in local government who can mentor future candidates. That's the real way to maintain an effective "farm system."

It would be wonderful to turn the GOP over from top to bottom and get real Conservatives, people who believe in limited government, who believe in the Constitution, etc.

The problem is, and this is partly why my wife and I no longer involve ourselves in campaigns at any level, we don't get the best candidates, we tend to get two different types of candidates (I'm talking about candidates besides incumbents).

We get the candidates that look the best, or that the PR people think they can spin the best.

We also get candidates that are friendly to the GOP leadership at whatever level, or that people feel that they are owed a certain position.

I'm including the people who are in orbit around these politicians as well - the current President Bush is a good example - when he was running for Governor, a lot of us were like "this guy has no business running a county, let alone a state (even with Texas' limited governorship)", but certain people/groups seemed to want him in there, and it was pretty clear that he was headed towards a Presidential election in the future.

He kept making it through the selection processes/primaries, even though there were things that should have disqualified him, and it was pretty clear that he was being pushed along, not on his own merit, but that of the people around him, and his father.

He becomes President, a lot of people from his father's cabinet come into office around him.

Our government now spends more than it ever has in its history, it's growing larger, etc., etc., Lobbying is at record levels, pork is at record levels.

I don't think any of that is a coincidence.

[TXBSAFH]

This si one of the main reasons I am a conservative independant. I quit the party in 2003.

[narby]

If we adopt a policy without some kind of "amnesty", then the stick component of the equation must be far stricter.

If we want these people to be "legal", then we *must* make it easier for them to be legal than not. If we make it hard for them to be legal, then the penalty for them remaining illegal must be steep, otherwise we won't tip the balance to make it "easier to be legal than not".

Political realities what they are (many blue staters don't see a problem with illegals in their big cities), I think we might have a better chance with an amnesty program than without. Because these libs won't tolerate the steep enforcement that would be required otherwise.

I'd love to send all the illegals home too. I just don't think it will ever happen, and I want some policy that will bring them in under legal status, so we have a chance at catching the real bad guys like criminals and terrorists that come over.

[Celtman]

What part of "illegal" do you not understand?

[narby]

pass a guest worker program, and you will see the largest movement to unionize various industries in this country since the 1920s.

Yeah. Sucks doesn't it? I don't see a way around that, except we should also pass some laws to limit unions to the same rules applied to other industries. Anti-trust rules, etc. As it is, the liberal governments of decades past gave them too many special laws that allow them to abuse their positions.

[oceanview]

those workers also vote, they won't elect people who thwart their move to unionize.

right now, employment of illegals is below the radar for most workers. but when the day comes that workers at sanctionied businesses who only hire above board, see a busload of newly minted mexican workers being bused in by their corporation to take jobs - you'll have a sea change in worker sentiment towards a program like this, and the elected officials who put it in place.

[narby]

What part of "illegal" do you not understand?

What part of "it ain't possible to deport 10 million people" do you not understand? What are you going to do, build a new Los Angeles from scratch south of the border? Or just let them die in the desert right off?

I don't know, maybe the trains that Adolf used to send the Jews to their "worker camps" are still available. They had a full blown effort to "deport" Jews for several years, and all they got was a mere 6 million of them. [/sarc]

[oceanview]

and don't worry, its a short move for the same voices to be looking to give the guest workers the right to vote too.

[Old Professer]

Tell it to the Serbs.

[devane617]

Narby, quite comparing my country to Hitler. Send them south to Mexico and let the Mexican gov take care of them. If they starve, it is their problem.

[oceanview]

stop comparing this to the Holocaust.

fine, don't deport them - we are better off with the status quo, then a formal guest worker program that will bring even more people here to take jobs, once you open up job opportunities in above board industries to foreign workers also.

[gubamyster]

ping

[Dewy]

And some of our schools and politicians are blaming me for not learning Mexican. What a hell of a nerve. This is my Country.

HE HE HA HA now thats funny. Mexican in not a language, I think it's called Spanish. I'm not laughing at you, It's just down right funny. LOL Thanks for making my day. Speaking Mexican HA,HA,HA,HA.

[narby]

when the day comes that workers at sanctionied businesses who only hire above board, see a busload of newly minted mexican workers being bused in by their corporation to take jobs - you'll have a sea change in worker sentiment towards a program like this, and the elected officials who put it in place.

I really can't see any major change in the current situation. Where it's possible for mexican speaking workers to work, illegals are already there. We don't have that many low skilled factory jobs any longer, and the one's we have are already heavily unionized, so that situation won't change.

It might be possible to move more "legal" mexicans into fast food jobs. But there are already many in that industry now, so what's the difference a few more will make?

[Gritty]

[COEXERJ145]

Perhaps if the anti-immigration crowd would stop opposting every single bill, even the ones that give them almost everything they demand, something like McPain's bill wouldn't have a chance of passing.