Posted on 01/23/2006 7:32:54 AM PST by devane617
Arizona business and political backers of a guest worker program for immigrants wishing to work in the U.S. are getting some top-level backing.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is teaming with top labor unions, other business interests and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in support of a guest worker program and legal way for undocumented workers already in the U.S. to stay in the country.
Arizona Sen. John McCain and Congressmen Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe, as well as the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry, are top pushers of a controversial guest worker program.
Joining the U.S. Chamber in favor a proposal put forward by McCain, Flake, Kolbe and U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) are the Service Employees International Union, the Laborers International Union, the American, bishops group and the American Health Care Association. The Arizona state chamber also backs that guest worker effort.
Those groups do not support a more get-tough immigration package put forward by Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, both Republicans. That measure includes a guest worker program but requires the estimated 11 million illegals already in the U.S. to return to their native countries and reapply for legal status.
Kyl's rival in this year's election, Democratic real estate executive Jim Pederson, supports the McCain-Kennedy bill.
McCain-Kennedy requires illegals in the U.S. to pay a fine and undergo criminal and medical background checks and allows them to reapply for status.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) officially endorsed a guest worker program on Friday. President Bush also backs a temporary worker program.
Some other unions, however, including the AFL-CIO, worry about a large-scale guest worker program displacing U.S. jobs in favor of less expensive immigrant labor.
Other heavyweight business interests backing guest worker include the Travel Industry Association of America, Ford Motor Co., Eastman Kodak, DaimlerChrysler and the California Chamber of Commerce.
Business and unions backers of McCain-Kennedy face skepticism from conservatives who passed a get-tough immigration measure late last year without a guest worker plan. Conservatives such as Scottsdale Congressman J.D. Hayworth want border enforcement shored up and tougher penalties against employers who hire illegals put in place before a guest worker package is considered.
West Valley Congressman Trent Franks said Thursday he wants the U.S. Senate to approve the House's enforcement bill and then a guest worker plan can be considered separate from that.
Illegal immigration and border security are top economic and political issues in Arizona and other border states. Key industries rely heavily on migrant and immigrant labor but Franks and others worry terrorists will try or already are trying to enter the U.S. via the Southwestern border with Mexico for a domestic attack.
"What are you talking about? Is your goal a "white only" america or something?"
Your an a$$hole for borrowing from the Leftist playbook with the "race card" -like comment. I happen to disagree also, but comments like that belong on the KOS/DU hysteria playground.
A vote for third party candidates will make the biggest voice of all in Washington.
its the service industries that want these workers. How many workers at Home Depot and Target can be replaced by mexican guest workers? alot of them. go across the board in US service industries, look at the workers and their skill sets, and ask youself how many of them can be replaced with legal, low skill workers from mexico? millions of them.
how long does it take to train a legal mexican guest worker to mount wheels on cars at a non union auto manufacturing plant in Texas or Alabama? about 45 minutes. these industries also want legal guest workers, and the downward pressure on wages they bring.
this program is about nothing more then catering to the demands of businesses who make political contributions, to satisfy their needs for a lower wage pool of workers.
A point worth repeating. The unemployment rate is 4.9 percent. If those 10 million workers disappeared we would feel it. Mexico is the country with the problem. A quarter of its workforce is here.
Just exactly what damn good has come from the Republicans being the majority party. They got us into the mess we're in today by refusing to secure the borders!
Vote 3rd Party, then the Republicans will start listening if they want to keep their seats or get their seats back.
McCain has got to go!!!
I can't think of a single republican that I'll be supporting this next election cycle.
Not that they care or anything. There are plenty of republiBots right here on FR that will pull that lever no matter what, because they just don't know any better.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
That statement is the truth!
FReepers are expecting the RNC and the Republican Party to get their morals and integrity back once again. Just where do they think this change is going to originate from? Large campaign contributers? Small campaign contributers? The Congressional Chaplains?
Phone companies? They sell the disposable phones and phone cards--they clean up will illegals.
Western Union and other "envios dinero" services.
Are they donating to the pro-lawbreaking side of the aisle? Maybe it's time to check opensecrets.org and find out how the money is flowing.
IMO you would be better off to rethink that statement...terrorist's slipping in as "immigrants"...is a reality.
Not to mention the impact the "immigrant problem" has on your wallet/purse.
FWIW-
First you say this.
The bottom line is that we must make it easier to for Mexican workers to be legal than not.
Then you say this.
No "guest worker" program has a prayer of working unless it is combined with some "stick" component that will make that balance work.
Which is it?
Do you want to make it easier or harder? Do you want something done about people who break the law or not?
You say we should ignore the 10 million illegals who broke existing law to get into this country but then say we should pass another law with different restrictions and that would solve the problem.
That doesn't make much sense to me. Why would they recognize and comply with another another law when they ignored the first one?
Comparing people who want to require people from other countries who are in our country illegally to leave until they can enter in a lawful manner, to Nazis putting Jews on a death train does not seem very rational either.
I don't think we can have some law that says we can deport or jail some Arab or South American that we think might be a terrorist or international gang member because they are here illegally and then say that other illegals can ignore it because they are another race and we think they are here to work.
I'd like to hear your idea on a law that will establish control on who comes,goes and stays in the country.
I would like to hear how you would enforce it or how you would get aliens to comply with it.
The spawn of satin is surprisingly soft to the touch.
The original post wasn't to you. The original poster said: Freepers, we have lost our beautiful America,
If that doesn't sound racist to you, then you've got a problem.
Sure there is, back home where every illegal alien belongs. McCain and his liberal clone Ted Kennedy can take their amnesty and stuff it because it has no support in the country except for a few open border apologists, which by the sound of things includes you.
"My Country" isn't deporting mexicans to the desert to starve at this time, so what's your point?
If they were, the more accurate comparison would be to Stalin, who starved 20 million peasants. So, OK, you're only proposing we only should starve 10 million and Stalin starved 20 million, so I guess you're "better".
Look, I don't like illegals either. But get real. Deporting 10 million people just isn't going to happen. Whip out your calculator and figure out how many greyhound buses you're talking about. Then imagine the entire left, and a good portion of the right (like me) objecting to treatment that in the best cases would see some number of illegals dying, if only from incidents relating to such a huge, and unnecessary move. (and imagine the crashing real estate prices in Orange County Ca. since half the population would be gone).
I'm a conservative, but at least I have a wee bit of reality in me.
What industry could use untrained, foreign speaking, illiterate mexicans, that already isn't employing them? Not enacting a guest worker program will certainly keep the status quo, which means that al queda can ship bad folks across the border at any time. And it means that once illegals are here, there's no reason for them to go home, as a guest worker program would require.
Think about this for awhile. This is not a hard problem to fix, if people would just open their mind and think. We need unskilled workers. Mexico has lots of them. It's easy to sneak them across the boarder illegally, so they come. The only good solution will *require* that it be easier to be legal than not. That can be any combination of border security and guest worker system, but it *must* be easier to be legal than not, or we will continue to swell the illegal ranks until Azatlan is real.
For those workers who stay, we should require they learn english, and US history, and become "Americans". And we should not tolerate mexican language and culture in the broader culture, so we completely assimilate mexicans as we did the Italians, Germans etc. before.
Yeah. I agree. But what are you going to do with 10 million people? Do you comprehend what you're proposing?
This is why we have this problem. The left half of the country doesn't think we have a problem. And the right half of the country says "what is it you don't understand about the word 'illegal'". Neither answer will ever work. Some third way is required, or we really will lose a great deal of this country to "North Mexico".
Some elements must be border enforcement. A Guest worker program. And *real* assimilation for those who stay.
A guaranteed policy to get Dems elected who will make the problem even worse.
There are ways to pursuade the Reps on this issue, and the Minute Men have gone a very long way to doing that by embarrasing the Republicans. Just keep it up.
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