Fatalis, I applaud your optimism that a Tancredo-style guest worker program would work and end the nightmare of illegal immigration. I just don't have the confidence you apparently do that our federal government is going to, all of a sudden, after 30+ years of ignoring its own laws and constitutional responsibilities, put the interests of the American People before the interests of the Cheap Labor Lobby. The latter has some serious bucks that walks a long way in DC.
No, the government has to "earn" its credibility on this by enforcing the law and protecting our borders FIRST before even talking about guest worker programs.
Tancredo has addressed your concern:
Tancredo:
My purpose in introducing the bill is to emphasize that what we have to do to enforce our own immigration laws is to focus on the enforcement side of things: defend your border, apply pressure to step up internal enforcement of immigration law. Then you can develop some sort of guest worker plan that allows people to are truly needed to fill the jobs that "no one else can fill" to come into the country for a short period of time. While they’re here, they cannot get amnesty, they can’t bring family, and they have to return home in order for them to be legally employed in the United States. You can only do that only if you control your own borders.
Is Tancredo's program risk free? No, nor is any action on this issue. Life is not risk free, but Tancredo's proposal has the best opportunity for success, and the best chance to stave off an amnesty of illegal aliens. Better by far than maintaining the status quo.
There are lots of bad guest worker plans in Congress that are simply veiled amnesties. President Bush is going to spend a lot of energy trying to get a guest worker program passed, so the best strategy is to make sure that the plan that moves is Tancredo's. However, it's also the plan the President is least likely to favor, therefore to get him behind it he has to understand that it's the plan most likely to pass. It needs to be worth his while to compromise, which is going to mean that folks who oppose any amnesty for illegal aliens need to take off their Utopian glasses and support Tancredo's plan, and also support President Bush if (and only if) he's willing to compromise and incorporate the BE REAL Act into his immigration reform agenda. Empower Tancredo by supporting his legislation and you increase his chances of being on the winning team.