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"...to fill jobs that Americans will not do."

I rarely criticize Pres. Bush. I know this is almost a throw-away line, but it's revealing: what is this man's real understanding of Americans? I can imagine almost anyone making this degrading statement except the leader of our country.

So, do you want to pick cotton for meager wages? Or oranges, apples, etc? Do you want to clean up after someone's else's dirt and crap? I'm sorry but there are a lot of jobs out there that he's right about, if he wasn't, then why is it that illegals & minorities are doing them?

How many millions of people now drawing a govt check, are perfectly suited for this kind of work? Nearly all I would bet. We allow illegals to work at any age picking fruit, but our children must not be bothered to learn how to work, reform labor laws to allow children as young as 12 to work. A 16 year old should be allowed to work full time if they want to. As for those drawing welfare, or a "disability" such as aching feet, bad back, or addiction, put them to work by allowing them the freedom to live or die without govt assistance. The meager wages you speak of, will rise as the labor market shrinks, and the poor will once again have to learn how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

"I rarely criticize Pres. Bush. I know this is almost a throw-away line, but it's revealing: what is this man's real understanding of Americans? I can imagine almost anyone making this degrading statement except the leader of our country."

So, do you want to pick cotton for meager wages? Or oranges, apples, etc? Do you want to clean up after someone's else's dirt and crap? I'm sorry but there are a lot of jobs out there that he's right about, if he wasn't, then why is it that illegals & minorities are doing them?

baa39 is right. At a high enough compensation, there are virtually no jobs that a U.S. citizen won't do, but an illegal alien will.

Our unemployment rate hovers around 5%, which is considered full employment, as in a free enterprise economy there will always be some people in transition out of work. Pres. Bush's point is that there are jobs that would go unfilled, or at prohibitive cost, if not for the presence of non-citizens. He is proposing to allow for more non-citizen workers above the number who are admitted for eventual citizenship. This is the carrot that is necessary for an effective control of immigration, which will require the stick of more aggressive enforcement, inside the country as well as at our borders.

The stick won't work without the carrot. The carrot does not harm our country, rather it helps.