Executive Summary President Bush’s “temporary guest worker” proposal of January 7, 2004 was broadly interpreted as an illegal immigration amnesty program around the country and abroad. The Bush administration ordered the U.S. Border Patrol to survey apprehended illegal immigrants concerning President Bush’s proposal. The results indicated that President Bush’s proposal had actually lured greater numbers of illegal immigrants to violate the law. Politically inconvenient and/or potentially embarrassing data from the Border Patrol survey resulted in the Bush administration calling off the survey on January 27, 2004. The U.S. government never released a report based on the survey. The White House directed Homeland Security Public Affairs Officers to deliberately withhold information from the public and the media about the Border Patrol survey and a related spike in illegal immigration. The Bush administration mislead Americans for political purposes. The White House approved talking points included: • Do not talk about amnesty, increase in apprehensions, or give comparisons of past immigration reform proposals. • Do not provide statistics on apprehension spikes or past amnesty data. While the Border Patrol’s unscientific survey and its aborted execution may not provide a comprehensive picture of the relationship between President Bush’s immigration proposal and illegal immigration, the initial data is deeply disturbing. Analysis of the raw data from the survey forms indicates: • 45% crossed illegally based on rumors of a Bush administration amnesty. • 63% received Mexican government or media information supporting the notion of a Bush administration amnesty. • 64% previously entered the United States illegally. • 80% desired to apply for amnesty. • 66% desired to petition for family members to join them in the U.S. A detailed summary of our findings and conclusions can be found starting at page 15 of this report. Judicial Watch will continue to pursue this case and other illegal immigration matters, and report facts to the American people as part of its mission as a public interest educational foundation. Page 2 of 16
Very interesting, but not surprising.
The other side of the coin is groups in support of illegal immigration, have already made public statements saying they will not come forward to be identified unless it is total blanket amnesty/citizenship for all that are here now. They do not want to be identified for possible deportation. That means if proposals to identify illegals and process them to make sure only eligible people were allowed to stay here, most would not comply. Illegals want nothing short of citizenship for all of them, regardless of criminal history or any other reason that might disqualify them. The very people the guest worker program is aimed at are already saying they would not participate.
That means if a guest worker program was implemented, most would not comply, so we would still continue to have the illegal problem, but we would also have more legal immigrants to attempt to keep track of.