Bush Pushes Congress to OK Immigrants

CANCUN, Mexico - With Mexican President Vicente Fox at his side, President Bush gave Congress a long-distance push Thursday to open the United States to immigrant workers who have been sneaking across the borders to fill low-paying jobs.

"We don't want people sneaking into our country that are going to do jobs that Americans won't do," Bush said at the end of a private meeting with Fox, where the issue was on top of the agenda. "We want them coming in in an orderly way, which will take pressure off both our borders."

The meeting between the Mexican and U.S. leaders came on the first day of a two-day North American summit that also includes Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper, meeting with Bush for the first time since taking office two months ago with the promise of building stronger ties with Washington, said the two countries are moving past their "tension" over Iraq.

Still, he took a combative stance on their long-standing dispute over U.S. tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber, saying Canada would "pursue all its legal options" if he and Bush can't work out an agreement.

But it was the immigration debate, which has dominated the U.S. Senate this week, that took center stage in talks conducted in a beachfront resort surrounded by bikini-clad spring breakers. A new immigration law could affect as many as 6 million Mexicans living illegally in the United States — about half of all those who are estimated to have sneaked in from other countries seeking new opportunities they can't find at home.

Bush is pushing for a guest worker program that would let foreigners in low-paying jobs stay temporarily, which Fox says is a good first step toward some form of legal status for all Mexican illegal immigrants.

The issue has united the two leaders, whose friendship dates back to Bush's time as Texas governor but was strained over Fox's objections to the war in Iraq. But immigration has divided Bush's Republican party, with business interests who want cheap labor battling conservatives who want a get-tough policy against illegal immigrants.

"The matter is in the Congress of the United States and that is where the decision will be made," Fox said. "It is no longer between President Bush and President Fox."

"I told the president there is a legislative process that's going forward," Bush said. "And that it may look cumbersome to some, but that's how our democracy works."

The summit included plenty of time to be neighborly. The three leaders dressed casually in open-collared shirts and strolled together among the ancient Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza before sitting down for more intense one-on-one meetings. Fox planned a lavish dinner for his guests.

After spending the morning sightseeing, Bush had a few hours off before the formal meetings began. He used part of the time to work up a sweat in his hotel's gym.

There was tight security despite the fun-loving atmosphere generated by college students who have flocked to Cancun for spring break. Gunboats patrolled the turquoise waters off Bush's spa resort, and fencing kept out all but hotel guests. "I'd like to make sure you work more than you play," Bush joked to reporters.

The trilateral meeting was expected to be Fox's last, since he is set to leave office this year because of term limits. Bush lauded Fox for stabilizing the Mexican economy and improving the net worth of his people.

"That's important for the American economy as well," Bush said. "The more net worth there is in Mexico, the more likely it is the Mexican may be wanting to buy a U.S. product. And vice versa, by the way."

In his meeting with Harper, Bush sought to make the newly elected leader look good at home, making it a point to stress how hard the Canadian leader had pressed him on the softwood lumber issue. Harper "made an emphatic case," Bush said.

"I appreciate his steely resolve to get something done," the president said. "I appreciate your pushing."

But Bush didn't give Harper much of substance, saying only that "my intent is to negotiate in good faith and a timely fashion to resolve this issue."

"What are the "costs" of rounding up and deporting 20 million illegal aliens?

You could require that all workers produce an ID card similar to a credit card for employment. Such a card would be furnished in Mexico; requiring that all Mexicans travel home for the proper documentation. That would cost us nothing. The database derived from such documentation would be forwarded to the United States. Criminals would not get cards.

For the majority of Mexicans, we are not talking long travel times--three hours max. We would set a deadline for all workers to get cards. The bottom line is that no employer could hire a worker without the card.

With the card, the employer tabs in the card number over the phone for worker verification. Any terminated cards would forbid the worker from being hired. With the card you could track where they are working, make them pay income taxes, control voter data bases and set an expiration date which would force all card holders to undergo a naturalization process within a certain deadline--five years, for instance.

Anyone who commits a felony would have their card terminated. The card would have lots of power. With the use of the card, the game would be over for the idea that if you could get enough people to beat the system, you could overload the system. This system would be managed by a simple database system much like what is already used in the membership systems in such retail outlets as Costco. There is no overload of the system. You simply have to get the card to operate in the United States.

Mexico would have to comply with this system. Their economy is dependent on the money these workers send back to Mexico. If Mexico wants that economic inflow, it will cooperate in implementing the system.

I never said there was a "quote" - hopefully the article below about Republican Rep. Nathan Deal's misguided effort in Congress to bar the children of illegal immigrants from receiving automatic citizenship answers your question (don't worry, Mojave, I don't expect you to answer my questions anymore):

". . . the language in the 14th Amendment is murky and has been misinterpreted over the years. Furthermore, he says, the words of the amendment have been a magnet for immigrants who enter the country illegally, have "anchor babies," then claim that deportation would cruelly separate them from their family.

The Supreme Court has never directly addressed the ambiguities in the Constitution that are seen by Deal and others who want to limit the 14th Amendment's scope. That creates an opening for Congress to restrict birthright citizenship -- and then let the courts decide whether that limit is constitutional. In Deal's view, the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is ambiguous enough that it might exclude children of parents who are foreign nationals. Automatic citizenship is now granted to anyone born in the United States, even the children of tourists.

Opponents say Deal and his supporters -- his legislation had 83 cosponsors as of last week -- are overreaching. All immigrants, legal or not, are subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. laws, says California's Howard L. Berman, the No. 2 Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. Furthermore, Berman says he is baffled at conservative Republicans, who normally insist on a textual reading of the Constitution, building a case that the court must "interpret" the 14th Amendment. "The fact that the court has not had reason to explore this is because Congress has not had the inclination to adopt something that is so contrary to the plain meaning of those words," he said.

Schumer had used much the same argument in framing his questions to Alito. "President Bush has stated his beliefs that judges should be strict constructionists, rigidly adhering to the letter of the Constitution," he told the judge. But Alito refused to be drawn in. "There are active legal disputes about the meaning of that provision at this time," he said.

For now, the debate is academic. Republican leaders prevented Deal's measure from being considered in December as a proposed amendment to an already contentious border security bill, which went on to be passed by the House. But even if he had been successful, his legislation would have to pass an even more skeptical Senate, where leading Republicans call the effort "futile."

But with public discontent over illegal immigration growing, Deal believes he has a case and a chance. "I think any vehicle that would get the issue before the Supreme Court is the right vehicle," he said.

Jurisdictional Dispute

Should that day come, Deal and others would look for guidance to John C. Eastman, a constitutional law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at the conservative Claremont Institute.

Eastman testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee in September that the Constitution's citizenship clause has been misinterpreted for more than a century.

Eastman has zeroed in on what the 1866 Civil Rights Act -- a statutory forerunner of the 14th Amendment, which was added to the Constitution two years later-- said about citizenship. Drafted to guarantee citizenship to recently freed slaves, the law was more direct in who was eligible: "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States." The 14th Amendment employed the more ambiguous clause "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," instead of "not subject to any foreign power."

This leaves little doubt in Eastman's mind that Congress understood a clear distinction between "basic territorial jurisdiction" such as traffic laws, and "complete jurisdiction", which encompasses a person's allegiance to a nation.

The Supreme Court confirmed his assessment in Elk v. Wilkins, an 1884 ruling that rejected a citizenship claim by John Elk, an American Indian who was born on a reservation but subsequently moved off, and therefore was denied his right to vote.

But Eastman said the court "misread" the citizenship clause 14 years later in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States to Chinese parents. After a visit to China, he was denied readmission to the United States. An 1882 law denied birthright citizenship to the decedents of Chinese nationals, and the government claimed that those children would be subject to the rule of its emperor. But the court ruled that common law and the 14th Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all persons born in the United States, regardless of their ethnic heritage.

Jack M. Balkin, a constitutional law professor at Yale University, said that even though the original understanding of the amendment may be ambiguous, the Wong Kim decision offered clarity.

"Now the question is 'what if Congress passes a law that says children of illegal immigrants are not citizens?' " he asked. "Wong Kim Art seems to suggest the statute would be unconstitutional. But you could distinguish that it does not specifically involve illegal aliens."

What the court would do, however, is difficult to predict, Balkin said, particularly since it has two new members and virtually no modern case law about the issue to rely on.

"We should not assume it's an easy case," Balkin said. He suspects the court would "tilt" toward striking down Deal's bill if it became law. However, "it's not a slam-dunk either way."

Building a legal argument might not matter if the supporters cannot muster the political will for a vote. And while they might ultimately have the numbers, Deal and company currently lack the muscle to bring the debate to the House floor.

On the House Judiciary panel, Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican, and Berman rarely find themselves aligned on issues, yet the two have maintained a cordial, working relationship over the years. Sensenbrenner never told Berman why the Deal measure had been sidetracked, but he made a point to put Berman at ease about the amendment. "He did tell me it would not be offered," Berman recalled. "He sort of said it with a smile."

The issue appears to have even less support in the Senate. Deal's bill has no companion legislation, and even some of those taking the hardest line on illegal immigration would prefer to steer away from a debate on the meaning of citizenship.

"I believe it would be futile because the United States Supreme Court would strike down any limitations on citizenship rights for individuals born in the United States," said Republican Sen. John Cornyn. He has offered a broad immigration bill that has been well received by interest groups seeking tighter border security and stricter enforcement of immigration laws. But eliminating birthright citizenship is not part of the measure.

Cornyn, a former Texas Supreme Court judge and state attorney general, noted that the Supreme Court offered a hint in 1982, when it wrote in Plyer v. Doe that public schools could not deny the children of illegal immigrants an education."

http://www.claremont.org/projects/jurisprudence/CQ20060213.html

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