Bush "Gold Card" would let open borders to cheap labor

Stein Report ^ | March 6, 2006 | Dan Stein

[lonewacko_dot_com]

...The Stein Report has learned of an secret briefing for Senate staffers by the Bush administration today. In a move to build support for Bush's guest worker amnesty plan, administration officials talked about how they would actually implement the program. Jaws dropped as the administration reps explained the centerpiece of the program, a "Gold Card" that would enable illegal aliens to enter the U.S. at will, and work at any job with no labor market or other tests needed but would deny them citizenship. "Gold Card" would be valid forever, similar to current "Green Cards" but illegal aliens holding a "Gold Card" would not be able to adjust their status through naturalization...

[Fruitbat]

I totally agree. Not only has the illegal invasion cost us billions in taxes for prison incarceration, social services, bankrupt school districts, and hospitals forced to curtail emergency services and depressed domestic wages -- it presents a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER to national security. Bush is a lame duck and doesn't care but I'm afraid his idiotic out-of-control border policy will hurt us in the midterm election.

Bush is a lame duck it's looking like more and more, and sadly it's largely due to his own inaction in certain areas.

I can't imagine us losing any seats in the midterms however. While W's popularity may not be great, it's even lower for Congressmen and even lower for Dims/Libs. It may be purely by default, but I see us picking up seats, not losing them.

Again however, that's politics, and while it would be considered a "political victory," in terms of this nation, I still think we're well on a losing track overall ideologically and morally.

[bybybill]

Wow, you have quite the imagination.

[quantim]

Bush is a lame duck it's looking like more and more, and sadly it's largely due to his own inaction in certain areas.

Well stated, but the problem is with Bush in the long run is another animal, not ducks, but RINOs.

Bush fears something Reagan did not, period.

[T.L.Sink]

The Dems want the cheap votes and Rep. businessmen the cheap labor. And you and I get f***ed.

[T.L.Sink]

You're right. Heretofore all immigration into the USA presupposed assimilation. That's gone down the tubes and now we've reached the point where we actually ENCOURAGE a bilingual society. Isn't this the balkanization of America? Everything I publicly see or hear anymore is repeated in Spanish. By the way, another poster mentioned Jeb Bush. I live in Fla and he often prefaces a speech in Spanish. It amuses me because most Cuban-Americans speak better English than he does Spanish!

[GarySpFc]

Apparently the Gold Card is not a rumor.

Specter's proposal seeks compromise on immigration reform WASHINGTON - The Senate's main immigration bill would enable most illegal immigrants now in the United States to remain indefinitely as long as they stay employed, but it wouldn't put them on a glide path to U.S. citizenship. The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin debating the measure Wednesday under a three-week timetable aimed at producing a final version for the full Senate by March 27. Sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee chairman, the legislation is designed to strike a middle course between a bill passed by the House of Representatives calling for tougher immigration enforcement and pro immigration advocates who call for permanent legal status - and eventual citizenship - for the estimated 11 million aliens now in the country illegally... Senate Judiciary Committee staff members who explained key provisions of Specter's bill on Monday said that the measure would create a "gold card" program for illegal immigrants who entered the United States before Jan. 4, 2004. It also would create a guest-worker program to bring in more foreign laborers.

[bordergal]

No more Bush family, no more Clintons.
Bag them all.

[COEXERJ145]

There is another thread talking of this, and it's a Specter proposal and has nothing to do with Bush.

But it is more fun for the Bush haters here to blame Bush for it no matter whose idea it really is.

[Issaquahking]

Didn't take long for lines to be drawn in the sand on this thread. While "W" maybe a good wartime president, he's done one hell of a lousy job on the border.Al you bushbots who think the president can do no wrong need a wake up call. Sure he's does good at the war, and trying to fix social security, but the biggest monster on the plate is the border! This country will rue the day that the border dissappeared!


Know this feeling?

Please President Bush,Defend our borders
can the PC, and the plea's to appease!


or we might end up with something like this...

Real security, would mean
No to this feeling





Things that upset moderate radical muslims!


Or to have to worry about those
who choose to cross us



With an agenda...




Solutions...

[T.L.Sink]

Yes, and it's almost Orwellian. The pols knows that we want secure borders and they think we're idiots because their "reforms" all are doublespeak for amnesty. Tancredo for president!

[T.L.Sink]

Yes, we've all got Bush fatigue. But it will take divine intervention to get Bubba off the stage!

[Thunder90]

Bet that the Dems will find a way for the gold card holders to vote for Dems. Bush is shooting the Republican party in the foot by doing this.

[Dat Mon]

Aside from Islamic terrorism, I think that guest worker programs, and illegal immigration 'reform', are going to be the dominant issues in our political landscape down the road, and for years to come. Hell, were already there now.

In the tech sector, we became aware, actually over a year ago, of a guest worker legislative agenda which was forming around a bipartisan group of politicians. Some of these pols have been conspicuously silent recently...like Oren Hatch for example.

Their long term goal was, or so I was told, to unify all the various guest worker categories and corresponding regulations into one large, complex, comprehensive guest worker legislative package...an Omnibus guest labor bill in effect.

Its true....all guest workers in the US...from toilet cleaners to astrophysicists would be covered....and the present H categories would be superseded and replaced. Of course, we all know about the situation at the low end of the labor scale, with the danger of 100 dollar an ounce lettuce if we don't let a couple million more illegals in, but the effects on the high end scale are also going to be of growing voter concern in the future.

One reason for this bill, IMO, is that lawmakers are tired of having to fight, and take heat every year when the annual H1b review comes due, and the quota is set for the next year.

Another reason, IMO, is that DC likes big packages in general, and big regulatory codes...like the massive tax code, because its much easier to hide 'stuff' in there...the proverbial 'devil in the details' special 'incentives' that I often allude to in my posts. These large bills are the beltway lobbyists stock in trade.

These issues are now on the diplomatic burner as well...I would be very surprised if a long term, comprehensive guest labor bill allowing virtually unlimited high tech workers was not a topic of discussion...off the record of course....when Bush visited India recently.

Virtually everyone I talk to in the tech sector is seeing the effects of H1b labor, which acts synergistically when it is combined with off-shoring of labor and development to countries such as India and China. Many H1bs act as go betweens to the offshore work projects, because they naturally know the language and the culture.

H1b also dovetails nicely with other small business government set-aside programs which are designed to 'help' minorities...minorities which increasingly are using either offshore or non American H1b labor, or both, to do contracts. I know, we seem to get calls from these people form time to time...they don't speak English well, their projects always seem to be in trouble, and they don't want to pay decent rates for good talent.

If you happen to know IT people who are working on large IT contracts as subs for the big guys, like IBM, you see the same trends here as well...more off-shoring and more H1b usage across the board on the development side. Check out some IBM blogs.

Of course, project and logistics management, and systems implementation and customer interfacing still demand American talent to make it work. Most American companies still want Americans on site to handle interfacing with the customer..but thats just one side of the equation.

Perhaps, if looked at in diplomatic light, all this government sanctioned labor arbitrage is part of some global diplomatic strategery...the selling of American citizenship and American jobs to foreign countries in return for strategic partnership, and support in the WOT, and in the hopes of creating a resident American consumer culture in the host country.

Of course, that strategery wont mean much to the Americans who happen to lose their jobs in the process. Is it not reasonable to assume, that the so called 'American' products consumed in the host country, will also be designed and produced there as well...isn't that the whole point for offshoring in the first place?

Look for a traditionally conservative, 'America first' candidate to emerge...probably more than one in the 08 primaries, and look for that candidate to run on a platform diametrically opposed to guest labor and amnesty bills...in effect...to run against Bush.

You'll know who he is by the 'protectionist, doom and gloom nativist labels hell attract around here. If, on the other hand, he also talks about radical tax reform, tort reform, legal reform, term limits, and a whole host of packages designed to make AMERICA MORE COMPETIVIE ONSHORE....hell get rave reviews.

[Rockitz]

The pols are all worried about their next job when they should be worried about whether we'll still have a country after they're done with it. Accordingly, they're all buying votes with my tax dollars. Even if Bush does not grant amnesty to the illegals, you can bet the next liberal in the oval office will.

The big business grifters have already left this country with their factories and are on to the next mark, leaving us with the bill.

Our founding fathers created a republic for a reason. Democracies have short shelf lives and this one is ripe. </rant>

[The Red Zone]

Why is lettuce such a big deal anyhow. Now mess with my cabbage, that's another story.

[EternalVigilance]

Bush is shooting the Republican party in the foot by doing this.

More like in the head.

[T.L.Sink]

Bush's policy NOW is de facto amnesty. It may be time for a third party. I know what everyone says about that but they can have a very positive role - I can explain how.

[Rockitz]

All I know is that in 20 years our country's gonna be so fragmented by several different languages and cultures, that it's not even gonna resemble what it was in the 60s and 70s.

The transition from a Melting Pot to a Multicultural society will be the death of this country. Hopefully the new immigrants will assimilate, but it sure doesn't seem like it right now and it doesn't help when our government enables them by enacting bilingual education, voter materials in multiple languages, etc.

[TigersEye]

Gold Card? I've got a better idea. Start putting Americans who hire illegals in prison for long periods of time.

I don't want no steenking Gold Card Program.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

I can't believe Bush is so incredibly tone deaf on this issue.

Really?

Nominating Harriet Miers to the SCOTUS.

Hiring Mike Brown as Fema director.

Campaigning for Arlen Specter's re-election.

Declaring that outsourcing jobs to India is a good idea.

Lobbying for PNTR status for China.

Scott McClellan as press secretary.

Trying to extend Social Security benefits to Mexican nationals.

Heralding the SC decision that institutionalized racial quotas in law school admissions?

Any of this ring a bell?