Free Republic

President Bush's plan to grant amnesty to millions of undocumented workers and allow millions more to enter the country is a fundamental disconnect with reality and should be rejected out-of-hand.Though Bush says that many details would be left to Congress to iron out, his outline fails even to address issues that should be basic to any immigration plan and clearly is not intended as a serious effort at all.Rather, it is a sentimental gesture, designed mainly for political benefit and based on clichés about ''huddled masses'' and ``a nation of immigrants.''Among the fundamental issues ignored by his proposal:• Administrative capacity: The...

The most obvious point to make about George W. Bush's new immigration initiative is that he didn't have much choice. Political, economic, social and cultural imperatives forced the creation of a "guest worker" program — and thus the vast expansion of America's immigrant population. To be sure, the president spoke in the soothing language of "reform." But Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, has seen many such "reforms" in the past, and they all opened the door to millions of newcomers. "By any name, the Bush proposal is an amnesty for illegal aliens," he says....

Imagine a person 10 times as determined as you are. Picture a guy who will wade across rivers, brave 120-degree boxcars and face vicious smugglers and murderous vigilantes — all to get a job picking fruit for 10 hours a day. That person is the illegal immigrant. Let's call him Sam. This whole immigration debate is about him, the choices he faces and the way he responds. One thing we know about Sam: he will get here. Between 1986 and 1998, Congress increased the Border Patrol's budget sixfold. Over that time the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. doubled,...

Like It or Not, Bush Leads January 8, 2004 Listen to Rush...(…discuss the substance and politics of the immigration disagreement) BEGIN TRANSCRIPT 12:10 PM ET RUSH: What's still on everybody's mind out there is this immigration business. And we've got some audio sound bites on this and some stories. I want to start out though with a little ditty, if you will, how should I phrase this? I guess I could call it leadership. And I do to want contrast some things going on here, President Bush with recent Democratic presidents, or a recent Democrat president, in the current...

<p>The debate over President Bush's new immigration reform has so far been mainly about election-year politics. But what we believe most commends it is that it recognizes the world as it exists.</p> <p>Like it or not, the U.S. is part of an integrating regional and world economy in which the movement of people across borders is inevitable. Despite nearly 20 years of efforts to "crack down on the borders," the immigrants keep coming--an estimated eight million without legal U.S. documents today. As long as the per capita income differential between the U.S. (nearly $32,000) and Mexico ($3,679) continues to be so wide, we can't stop immigrants short of means that will violate our traditions, our conscience, and our national interest.</p>