Your interpretation:
Note the first sentence of the last paragraph. He says he is against amnesty. Now note the second paragraph of the last paragraph. He proposes giving illegals a temporary worker card. He says he is against amnesty and then in the very next sentence he proposes it. To say his plan is NOT amnesty is bull.
If people come across the border illegally, they are illegal aliens. If they come across the border as part of a guest worker program, they are LEGAL aliens.
If you take someone who is illegally in the country, give them a temporarey worker card and call them legal, that is amnesty. If you don't allow people here illegally to apply for the guest worker program and only open it to people here legally or people applying from their home countries, then it's not amnesty.
Bush's original plan did provide amnesty for illegal aliens who had jobs here.
Kyl and Cornyn's plan is much better and almost there. Here's a good article on it.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandDefense/em982.cfm
It's problem is that it would still allow some illegal aliens to apply as a guest worker, leave the country and then come back in under the program. It therefore still encourages illegal immigration to an extent and still provides amnesty to some.
People learn and refine their opinions on things.
When I first getting interested in illegal immigration, I was convinced that the issue couldn't be addressed without a plan that granted amnesty to some. As I learned more about the problem through reading and discussing it, my opinion changed.
I still thing that addressing illegal immigration without a plan that allows limited amnesty for people who would qualify to enter legally under the plan is going to be extremely difficult to implement. However, I now feel that we cannot afford a plan that grants such amnesty. We cannot afford to once again show people that undermining our immigration laws works.
The horrific sight of rounding up and deporting over 5% of the people in the US is going to be difficult to handle regardless of if we allow those with jobs who are self sufficient to stay. However, we cannot simply absorb all the illegal immigrants into our society. There are simply way too many that are not making a possitive contribution.
A temporary guest worker program also doesn't solve the problem of needing to deport people. It can be a path to citizenship for a few, but for the most it's a temporary work visa that will end, and we will be back at the same point we are now or worse.
I've surrendered my delusions that a guest worker program will do much to solve illegal immigration. It merely provides legal workers that will likely be needed only after real enforcement takes place. I believe such a program is necessary to protect our economy, but it doesn't need to be large enough to handle nearly the number of illegal immigrants we have in the country now.
It also allows the illegals that are here currently to stay for five years before they even attempt to make things right as far as getting guestworker status. It doesn't really give them legal status of any sort during that period but it suspends law enforcement efforts against them during that period which amounts to the same thing. There is hardly any difference between the five years in Kyle/Cornyn and the six years in the Bush plan. It really is just an effort to kick the can down the road for several years while giving the illusion that something has been done when in fact nothing has been done.
And Cornyn/Kyl in the meantime allows in an UNLIMITED number of guests every year and throws EVERY American job open to competition and downwards wage pressure. We are not just talking about low-end unskilled jobs. There are lots of well educated people in India and Asia who would love to come displace an American at half the hourly wage.
And along with everybody else, you have failed to explain how we will make the guests leave when their visas expire. Until you explain how that will happen, you are not talking about guests but rather permanent immigrants.