Posted on 01/27/2005 7:15:50 PM PST by neverdem
WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 - The battle within the Republican Party over immigration policy was joined Wednesday as President Bush vigorously promoted his proposal for a guest worker program and conservatives in Congress introduced an alternative proposal to tighten immigration restrictions.
At a news conference, President Bush said again that he considered his guest worker proposal "a priority" even though Senate Republicans left it off their list of top goals. "A program that enables people to come into our country in a legal way to work for a period of time, for jobs that Americans won't do, will help make it easier for us to secure our borders," Mr. Bush said, adding: "I know there is a compassionate, humane way to deal with this issue. I want to remind people that family values do not end at the Rio Grande border."
Party conservatives, however, have strenuously opposed a guest worker plan since Mr. Bush introduced the idea in 2001, even staging a losing revolt over its inclusion in the party platform at the 2004 Republican convention. Many conservatives call the president's ideas "amnesty" - a term Mr. Bush disputes - because his plan includes ways for currently illegal immigrants to obtain temporary worker permits.
On Wednesday afternoon, Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., the Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, again introduced a measure to block illegal immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses.
At a news conference, he said the committee would not consider other immigration proposals, implicitly including the president's, until his own measure passed. A similar measure was removed from a bill to enact the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission last year. Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, is expected to introduce a driver's license restriction this year.
Mr. Sensenbrenner said his bill was primarily directed at border security, distinguishing it from other changes in immigration policy. "Immigrants are not terrorists, except a few of them," he said. "The legislation that was introduced today is designed to get the bad apples out of the barrel before the barrel was spoiled."
He said a group of House Republicans had written a letter to Mr. Bush urging him to provide full financing for provisions in last year's antiterrorism bill doubling the number of border patrol agents and tripling the number of beds for detaining illegal immigrants over the next five years. The Department of Homeland Security said recently that it was planning a smaller increase in financing, drawing the ire of advocates of tighter immigration laws.
Asked about the president's proposal, Mr. Sensenbrenner said his committee was "going to be plenty busy with other priorities, a lot of which are the priorities of the White House."
In an interview, Representative Chris Cannon, a Utah Republican who supports the president's plan, said a guest worker program would not amount to an amnesty because it would include a monetary penalty for currently illegal immigrants. "The people who want to kick them all out are not reasonable people," he said.
But Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado and chairman of the Congressional immigration caucus, vowed to defeat any program that in his view would reward lawbreakers, even questioning the president's motives. "Could it be just the corporate interests, the money interests that rely so heavily on cheap labor?" he asked
The long term is trending downward re population growth. Without immigrants we would have a negative population move this year. Who is going to replace the retiring workers?
There's a computer manufacturer about six blocks from my house that employs thousands of them. They're good workers and we have some great Chinese restaurants in the area as a result.
"What does he really think that his guest worker program will achieve?"
Another Bush (Jed) in the White House in 2008. Personally I think two Bushes make a forest and we don't need any more.
Nor do we need an amnesty program to reward illegal invaders and the corporate parasites who emply them.
I thought NAFTA was supposed to generate enough jobs south of the border to serve as an inducemnt for illegal invaders to stay out of the Country.
I guess Bush doesn't care about the legacy he'll be leaving in American history. Deliberately trashing this country, he'll be no doubt be president of the world next, and with no term limits, so why should he?
You wanted me to post a link to an article talking about connections between illegal immigration and suspected terrorist activity, heres one example.
From Bill Gertz article, Washington Times, Oct13,2004
"U.S. security officials are investigating a recent intelligence report that a group of 25 Chechen terrorists illegally entered the United States from Mexico in July.
The Chechen group is suspected of having links to Islamist terrorists seeking to separate the southern enclave of Chechnya from Russia, according to officials familiar with intelligence reports.
Members of the group, said to be wearing backpacks, secretly traveled to northern Mexico and crossed into a mountainous part of Arizona that is difficult for U.S. border security agents to monitor, said officials speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The intelligence report was supplied to the U.S. government in late August or early September and was based on information from an intelligence source that has been proved reliable in other instances, one official said.
A second U.S. official said the report is being investigated, but said it could not be determined whether the group of Chechens actually entered the country, as the intelligence source reported.
"We don't know whether or not that report is true," this official said.
A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that the intelligence report was provided by another government agency, but said Border Patrol agents were unable to verify its accuracy.
It could not be learned whether the reported infiltration is related to the recent Education Department warning to school officials to examine security in the aftermath of the attack last month by pro-Chechnya Muslim terrorists on a school in Russia, in which more than 300 people were killed and some 700 wounded.
In the Russian attack, heavily armed Islamists took over and wired with explosives the school building in Beslan, North Ossetia. It is believed that an accidental explosion set off a battle between Russian security personnel and the terrorists, who set off several explosions and shot schoolchildren and teachers as they tried to escape.
U.S. officials believe the Beslan terrorists included some al Qaeda-linked foreign terrorists.
The Education Department letter said that school officials should examine "protective measure guidance" for helping to prevent and respond to a similar terrorist attack, were it to occur in the United States.
The notice said the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are "currently unaware of any specific, credible information indicating a terrorist threat to public and private schools, universities or colleges in the United States."
The letter stated that indicators of terrorist surveillance before an attack include interest in site plans for schools, bus routes and attendance lists from persons who don't normally request such information.
Authorities also were advised to remain alert for "static surveillance" by people who may be disguised as panhandlers, shoeshiners, newspaper or flower vendors, or street sweepers who seem out of place in a particular area.
Other indicators of terrorist surveillance can include spying on school security drills, people staring at employees or vehicles in parking areas, and surveillance by pedestrians.
Fears of an attack on American schools also were raised by the recent discovery in Iraq of a computer disk containing data showing the layout of six schools in the United States, including districts in California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey and Oregon.
Officials believed the disk may have been part of a terrorist plot. However, FBI officials said on Friday that there did not appear to be a terrorist threat connected to the computer disk.
The Iraqi who had the disk, a member of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, apparently was collecting information from the Internet sites of American schools that would be useful for emergency planning for Iraqi schools, U.S. officials said.
U.S. security officials have been concerned in recent months that al Qaeda or other terrorists are planning to enter the United States from Mexico.
Intelligence officials said a suspected al Qaeda leader who has been in the United States was spotted recently in Mexico. Officials believe Adnan Shukrijumah, whom the FBI wants for questioning, met with alien smugglers in Mexico and Honduras and was seeking ways to bring al Qaeda members into the United States. Shukrijumah was seen in August in the Sonora province of northern Mexico, officials said.
Since October 2003, authorities have arrested five Arabs attempting to cross illegally into the United States from Mexico.
In July, officials dismissed as untrue an Internet report that said a group of Middle Eastern men were recently caught trying to cross the border from Mexico.
The report apparently was based on a group of Oaxacan tribesmen who were stopped as they tried to cross the border in Arizona. The tribesmen spoke an Indian language native to southern Mexico that may have been mistaken for Arabic, officials said at the time."
Theres more out there obviously...but Im a busy guy. This will have to do for now.
Yet another post that puts bayorod in his place.
Great post my friend. Nothing but the bold, brutal truth.
One last thing before I go, I do not support the worker program, now or ever. It will hurt this country more than anything that has come before it. Bush is 100% wrong on this issue and I will state that when need be, but, bashing him is wrong.
Night
Good post. All of this is already happening in California. We're paying a high price. President Bush is 100% wrong in his come-one, come-all, we'll-pay-for-everything illegal immigration policies. They should be deported, and if they really want to be American citizens, they must wait their turn and apply legally. Anything less is insanity.
You're right: many Republican-run businesses love the
cheap labor AND the Dems love their votes. And we're
paying an enormous price for the negligence of both
parties. I sincerely believe that in the midst of a war
against international terrorism, Bush is almost criminally
negligent for refusing to control our borders. If some
terrorists come across and wreck havoc,the bankrupt
school systems, insolvent hospitals, and costs of prison
incarceration will be small potatoes. Sadly, it may be
only thing that wakes them up. Meanwhile other nations
(and some terrorists) are laughing at the great Superpower
that can't even control its own borders.
Repost of mine from the other day.
"I have a sneaking suspicion that a guest worker program, if it is not implemented correctly, could result in a number of scenarios which would be unacceptable to the American public.
I'm drawing an analogy to the situation which has existed for years in the technical sector...namely...job shops, and also in clerical sector, as Kelly Temporary Services.
For example...did you know that much of the motel / hotel / restaurant summer labor in Dewey Beach DE, is gotten from companies which recruit kids over in Russia and Eastern Europe, arrange for their guest worker visas, do all the paperwork, arrange transportation, and then employ these workers. These companies, in turn, subcontract out these kids to local establishments as a labor pool.
Now, extrapolate this to the workplace in general. There is no reason, for example, why a job shop specializing in construction labor could not offer guest labor as a service to client architects, builders, and contractors. Much of the construction industry is already going to subcontract 1099 labor arrangements. There would now be no need to advertise for American labor...all of it could be gotten through a guest worker job placement agency.
These agencies may employ a few native Americans who would go to each establishment and market their service, in addition to advertising in local trade publications.
These job shops would do all of the paperwork, visa applications, etc. back in the source country. They would arrange for transportation here to the job sites, probably as a large block of workers which would be cost effective. There would always be a reserve of processed individuals waiting to go back in the guest worker home country.
It would all be within the guidelines of "matching a willing worker with a willing employer". These job shops would be making huge profits off of labor arbitrage, in essence.
If there is something implausible in this scenario...please clue me in."
With all due respect, Mr President. Family values and illegal does not compute!!
"Mexicans can't drive"
"Mexicans don't have insurance".
"Mexicans can't learn traffic laws".
"Mexicans can't understand traffic signs."
Show us where this has been the experience of states which allow illegals to get licenses.
But even if your stereotypes were correct, none of those problems would exist if they were LEGAL guest workers, right?
Ditto, great post!
According to what a Bush spokesman said at a CATO Institute recently Bush's guest worker program would extend to every sector of the economy, including nurses, doctors, high tech, you name it.
Americans would be literally competing with everyone in the world for a job in their own country. Now if that isn't one screwed up idea I don't know what it is.
I must say, every time someone wipes the floor with you, you never fail to give it a good shine.
Cut the crap, Mr. President.
Just uphold the Constitution, d@mmit!
Ya beat me to it. (I hate that)
The studies (commissioned by ZPG groups such as FAIR, CIS, NumbersUSA) have been refuted in their methodology, plus none of them have taken into account the economic impact of the laborers. Without employees you don't have employers who pay most of the taxes.
Look at the rust belt states where factories sit empty and the population has shrunk. By your theory they should have the best newest hospitals, schools etc...
Productive immigrants are never a drain on tax bases.
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