Really? This apparently is a common misconception. According to Senator Jeff Sessions, who spoke on this subject in the Senate on May 18:
The President told me--and he has said publicly a half dozen times--he believes in a temporary worker bill. I suppose his lawyers, maybe they thought it must be temporary, right? Well, it is not so. Let's take the people who will be allowed to enter our country in the future under this bill. This bill say that they can come in as a guest worker, temporary, and they can come for 3 years and then they can extend and stay another 3 years.
So that means it is temporary, right? Wrong. All you have to do is read the language of the bill, and as Senator Kyl and Senator Cornyn have pointed out, and you discover that the first day the temporary workers are here they can apply for a green card through their employer. And what is a green card? It makes them a legal, permanent resident. Permanent resident, not a temporary guest workers.
Five years after that green card is issued, they are entitled to apply for citizenship, every single one of them that enter under this so-called temporary provision. That is the truth, but it is not the message we are being told.
Earlier today I thought about offering an amendment or a resolution to bar anyone in the Senate from using the phrase ``temporary guest worker'' when they talk about this bill because it is so bogus. It is an utter and total misrepresentation. As I just explained, and as the Senators have just explained, everyone coming in under this provision for the indefinite future get to become permanent workers. I challenge anybody to dispute that. They have the ability to become a legal permanent resident, and after that, they get to go and become a citizen. So it is just not a temporary worker program, it is permanent immigration. That is the deal.
I believe Jeff Sessions, who challenges you to dispute his claim. If you can prove that it is temporary, do so. Links please. Otherwise admit that you are wrong, and that Bush is pushing a massive permanent amnesty, and misrepresenting even in today's address what he is pushing.
I had not heard that and don't think Sessions is in the business of lying.
So what.
Anybody can apply for a green card. People not in the "temporary" workers program can apply. So why can't people in the "temporary" program apply?
It's the getting of a green card that's hard.
The temporaries must still go to the back of the quota line and they must wait like anybody else before they get a green card.