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| Bush Calls for Overhaul of U.S. Immigration System | ||
| 2004-01-07 | ||
| Details of Bush’es plan emerge.... President Bush proposed a plan Wednesday that would allow illegal immigrants working in the United States to stay here
I dont have a problem with this *if* they receiving the same background checks, medical checks, etc... as legal immigrants undergo now. "Over the generations, we have received energetic, ambitious, optimistic people from all over the world ... our country is a welcoming society," Bush said. "America is a stronger and better nation because of the hard work and faith and the entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants." True... True... The president’s plan aims to relieve the pressures on hotel maids, meat cutters, landscapers and a host of other illegal workers. Who now receive very low wages and no protections because they are illegal. Of course that is the choice they make when they choose to be illegal. Plus, the administration hopes to better secure the nation’s borders and the homeland by making sure even illegals are documented. Excuse me but this is the dumbest thing I heard all day. If they are ’temporary workers’ and documented then, by definition they are not illegal. There will still be a massive illegal immigrant presence here unless we take steps to kick them (the illegals) out. "As a nation that values Will we truly strengthen our borders and actually start deporting illegal aliens? "America’s acting on a basic belief that our borders should be open to legal travel and honest trade," Bush said. "Our borders should be shut and barred tight to criminals, drug traders, drug traffickers 
and terrorists." As they are not today. The proposal comes in advance of a meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox (search) next week at the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico. The president had put immigration reform at the top of his agenda while campaigning for the presidency in 2000, but after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, it was placed on the back burner as administration officials and legislators worked to beef up border security. Now that Bush is into his second campaign for the presidency, he hopes to expand support among the Hispanic community, which broke ranks in 2000 by voting in considerable numbers for the Republican candidate. About one-third of Hispanic voters supported Bush in 2000.
See below.. they still have to wait like everyone else.... The number of green cards will be increased but the total number of new cards is not yet decided. Currently, the United States issues 1 million green cards per year, though only 140,000 of them are employment-based. The program would be separate from the temporary visa program that allows technical experts to work in certain sectors of the economy. If workers’ applications are not processed in the first three years of their employment, then workers would have to return to their countries to await final approval. This sounds like they will have to wait like everyone else. I hope that they will receive a permanent or 10 year ban if they fail to leave the country. Conservatives opposed to the idea of rewarding immigrants who break the law by illegally entering the United States say the president is basically giving blanket amnesty and encouraging more illegal immigration. But Bush said that’s exactly what he’s not doing. "I oppose amnesty, placing He gets it! Bush has sought to address conservatives’ concerns by proposing incentives to encourage workers to return home when their visas expire, including allowing them to collect Social Security benefits, which they would be contributing to as legal workers, after they return home. Other opponents of the program say it doesn’t do enough to reform the system, despite provisions that would allow dependents to join their parents and freedom of movement inside the United States. "Extremely disappointing," said Cecilia Munoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza I call BULLSHIT on this! They have the exact same opportunity (perhaps even more so) then people from Russa or the Philippines, or Spain, or China, or Syria who do not have a open border with the United States. The National Immigration Forum also issued a statement saying key components of the plan seem to create a near-permanent underclass of workers with only temporary legal standing in this country. "The White House also seems to ignore or inadequately address immigrant families, and without provisions to ensure families can remain intact the proposal will only encourage more undocumented migration," the statement continued. While House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi welcomed the movement on the issue, "immigration policy must not be the subject of election-year window dressing," said the California Democrat. "While the president’s framework is a start, we still need a committed effort to enact family-centered immigration policies that will reunite families, to end the uncertainty that thousands of businesses and millions of workers face every day, and to protect the nation." She said many Democrats are instead supporting legislation like that sponsored by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., which would enable 500,000 agricultural workers to become legal permanent residents through earned legalization. This is rewarding lawbreaking (ILLEGAL) immigrants and punishing law abiding people who are trying to do things legally. They also support California Democratic Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard’s DREAM Act that would provide young Note that this will only work if we ENFORCE EXISTING LAWS. This means actively patroling the borders, deporting illegal’. Forcing state and local governments (such as Seattle and California) to enforce federal laws (by cutting off | ||
| Posted by:CrazyFool |
| #8 Or the government agency tasked with enforcing the law actually does so, leveling the playing field. After all, illegal foreign help is, well, illegal, isn't it? The beauty of GWB's proposal? Economics will take care of it - benefits for illegals (raising the cost of hiring them) and sanctions on employers for breaking benefits laws (punishing employers) will take a huge bite out of employer demand for this labor. Instead of la migra jumping some some poor (in the liberal mind) |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-1-7 11:38:01 PM |
| #7 I think these people are ultimately assimilable, given the lack of racism today, compared to the prejudice that was very apparent during the 1900's against Poles, Italians, Jews, etc. Only if efforts are made to that end. But, witnessing all this constant gushing over "diversity", seeing billboards in major CA cities in Spanish, bilingual education, providing a choice of ATM language in Spanish, "sensitivity training" (of a cultural sort), etc, isn't any indication that things are headed that way. If your competitor hires illegal foreign help, you had better be prepared to do the same - the alternative is to lose your farm because you can't match his prices. Or the government agency tasked with enforcing the law actually does so, leveling the playing field. After all, illegal foreign help is, well, illegal, isn't it? |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-1-7 11:29:40 PM |
| #6 NMM: If greedy farmers/landscapers, etc didn't ignore immigration laws like they have the past 30 years--there would be no illegal immigrants--because they couldn't work here! It's got nothing to do with greed. It's basic economics at work. If your competitor hires illegal foreign help, you had better be prepared to do the same - the alternative is to lose your farm because you can't match his prices. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-1-7 9:23:21 PM |
| #5 Yes, sounds like a good idea IF the INS gets off its ass and enforces the laws a long, long time on the books! But what's with the attitude of blaming the illegal immigrants? If greedy farmers/landscapers, etc didn't ignore immigration laws like they have the past 30 years--there would be no illegal immigrants--because they couldn't work here! DUH! I'm just glad I don't live in the Southwest--the government's inaction--under both Dems and GOP has forever altered that part of our country |
| Posted by: NotMike Moore 2004-1-7 9:11:46 PM |
| #4 I think that this is one shoe falling. The other shoe falling (i.e. real efforts to stop ILLEGAL immigration) will probably be after his meeting with Fox. At least I hope so. Dimocrat reactions on CNN |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-1-7 7:48:58 PM |
| #3 I'm not sure this is necessarily all that people think it is. If you read the speech itself, it sounds like he's using this proposal to (1) make illegal immigrants much more expensive to employ, (2) toughen up penalties on employers, (3) tighten up borders and (4) increase governmental scrutiny of people who enter this country. He's calling it a way of welcoming more immigrants into this country - but the fact is that tightening up the borders and monitoring the movements of foreigners is going to do exactly the opposite. As with the amnesty in the mid-80's, illegals are going to gain legal status. But I suspect that this is the price Bush will have to pay in order to make any substantive moves to tighten up immigration controls. Illegals who stand to get green cards aren't stupid - they'll benefit from immigration restrictions, too - and they'll remember both issues at the polls when they get naturalized years from now. The message will be that the Republican Party can be their political home - tough on crime, encouraging of productive, law-abiding immigrants (apart from their coming over illegally). Around the turn of the 19th century, about 18 million Americans out of a population of 76 million were foreign born. That's about 23%. Today's percentage is about 14-15%. I think these people are ultimately assimilable, given the lack of racism today, compared to the prejudice that was very apparent during the 1900's against Poles, Italians, Jews, etc. The immigrants of that era weren't regarded as benign either. The eugenics movement sprang from the idea that Southern and Eastern Europeans were somehow inferior and unassimilable into American society. And in truth, there were some serious problems with anarchists who decided to transfer their struggle against European governments to the US, where they conducted bombing campaigns, including one on Wall Street that killed dozens. A goodly number of the members of the American Communist Party were the offspring of these immigrants. But today, all have assimilated into the American mainstream. And if legalization is the price we have to pay for effective (not to say draconian) border controls, so be it. As with the 1980's amnesty, this amnesty will apply only to people who have been in the country for some number of years (I believe it was over 10 years back then). This means that not all illegals will qualify. In any case, it's time that both immigration and immigration controls became a non-partisan issue. New immigrants do (or should) understand the connection between immigration controls and their standard of living. They are known to complain of lax border controls simply because wage competition gets too intense. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-1-7 7:40:34 PM |
| #2 Yep - this does nothing to address STOPPING illegal immigration. However, if La Raza is PO'd over this, I can't help but think that this is a good first step. This is part of the puzzle but not the whole solution....and California is still left holding the bag with no Fed funding to back up our border efforts here. |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2004-1-7 7:29:59 PM |
| #1 I am at odds with this proposal because on one hand we have done nothing to stop Illegals from coming here and once they get here they take jobs that no one else wants. But what will happen once they get legal status? Will even more illegals stream accross the borders? Can we realistically stop them from coming? And if they kick them all out who will cook and clean for the hollywoood elitists? |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) 2004-1-7 7:19:53 PM |