You're wrong, Mr. President
By Colin McNickle
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 26, 2004
President Bush says he wants to revamp an immigration system that is "not working" and is "not compassionate" through a program that can't work and would be anything but "compassionate" to Americans forced to pick up the tab.
During his end-of-the-year news conference, the president formally revived his expanded "guest worker" proposal first laid out as a set of "principles" a year ago. But the Bush plan is quite unprincipled and, by any other name, another in a long line of amnesty programs. Bush confidante and former Montana Gov. Mark Racicot disputed that characterization to me during the fall campaign. But that's exactly what it is. And it will do what amnesty programs do best -- fail.
Details of the president's plan go to Capitol Hill next month. Mr. Bush wants to allow illegal aliens -- up to 8 million if not more -- to hold jobs here "legally" by issuing "temporary worker cards." American workers would not be hurt, the president insists; these legalized illegals would fill jobs that U.S. firms supposedly can't fill.
Not only will the administration proposal "take the pressure off" Border Patrol agents who should be "chasing crooks and thieves and drug runners and terrorists," the president said these illegals are innocuous, "good-hearted people." All they want to do is "put food on the table. ... Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River."
But apparently common sense does.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., the former junior high teacher and president of the Independence Institute, recently posed a dozen critical questions about the Bush plan. Allow me to paraphrase and quote from some of them:
How is forgiving an unlawful act without penalty not amnesty?
With no penalty, what prevents even more illegals from streaming into our country? (There's already ample documentation of a flood of new illegals, especially in Arizona.)
Why not secure our borders first, then "experiment" with a new "guest worker program"?
An estimated 150,000 people, hundreds from countries on the State Department's "watch list" for harboring terrorists, enter the United States from countries other than Mexico each year. And amnesty for Mexican illegals takes priority?
"The president says his temporary worker plan will be limited to 'jobs Americans won't do.' But since willingness to do any job is always relative to the wages being offered for that job, isn't it true that millions of jobs will be lost by Americans to foreign labor willing to work at a lower wage? When an employer lowers the wage of a job so only a foreign worker will take the job, as is already happening in construction trades and many other occupations, how can anyone say this is not taking jobs away from Americans?"
In "principle," the president's plan would allow "temporary workers" (i.e., illegal aliens) to take jobs for a three-year period, renewable for another three-year period. But what if that worker marries and has children while here. "(W)ill the plan require him to go home? If he returns home, what happens to his wife and children?" Does the U.S. government (i.e., taxpayers) take responsibility for these offspring citizens, paying for their educations and medical care?
Current laws prohibiting the hiring of illegal aliens are virtually unenforceable. What really will change? Will proof of "illegal legal" status be required? Will there be enforcement? How? What will be the penalties?
An estimated 400,000 illegals remain at large in the U.S. today. Among them, 100,000 "criminal aliens." There are an estimated 2 million tourist, student and extraneous visa "overstays" not rounded up and sent home. Asks Congressman Tancredo: "(W)hy should anyone believe (immigration authorities) will be willing and able to locate and deport an additional 6 million to 8 million 'temporary workers' if these workers choose to stay when their permit expires?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Bush says "the country is less secure than it could be with a rational (immigration) system." But what's "rational" and more "secure" about a "solution" that only exacerbates the illegal immigration problem?
Not a thing.
Sorry, Mr. President. Sorry Gov. Racicot. But you're both wrong.
The president's amnesty plan has gotten a cool reception, especially from congressional conservatives. But that doesn't mean it's dead; it could end up attached to a commonsense measure, excised from the intelligence overhaul bill, to deny illegals driver's licenses. Granting illegals such official documentation is no less than a license to commit fraud.
We must get serious about controlling the influx of illegal aliens into this country in 2005. Instead of euphemizing amnesty, the administration should be euthanizing it.
Colin McNickle can be reached at [email protected] or (412) 320-7836
By Colin McNickle
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 26, 2004
President Bush says he wants to revamp an immigration system that is "not working" and is "not compassionate" through a program that can't work and would be anything but "compassionate" to Americans forced to pick up the tab.
During his end-of-the-year news conference, the president formally revived his expanded "guest worker" proposal first laid out as a set of "principles" a year ago. But the Bush plan is quite unprincipled and, by any other name, another in a long line of amnesty programs. Bush confidante and former Montana Gov. Mark Racicot disputed that characterization to me during the fall campaign. But that's exactly what it is. And it will do what amnesty programs do best -- fail.
Details of the president's plan go to Capitol Hill next month. Mr. Bush wants to allow illegal aliens -- up to 8 million if not more -- to hold jobs here "legally" by issuing "temporary worker cards." American workers would not be hurt, the president insists; these legalized illegals would fill jobs that U.S. firms supposedly can't fill.
Not only will the administration proposal "take the pressure off" Border Patrol agents who should be "chasing crooks and thieves and drug runners and terrorists," the president said these illegals are innocuous, "good-hearted people." All they want to do is "put food on the table. ... Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River."
But apparently common sense does.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., the former junior high teacher and president of the Independence Institute, recently posed a dozen critical questions about the Bush plan. Allow me to paraphrase and quote from some of them:
How is forgiving an unlawful act without penalty not amnesty?
With no penalty, what prevents even more illegals from streaming into our country? (There's already ample documentation of a flood of new illegals, especially in Arizona.)
Why not secure our borders first, then "experiment" with a new "guest worker program"?
An estimated 150,000 people, hundreds from countries on the State Department's "watch list" for harboring terrorists, enter the United States from countries other than Mexico each year. And amnesty for Mexican illegals takes priority?
"The president says his temporary worker plan will be limited to 'jobs Americans won't do.' But since willingness to do any job is always relative to the wages being offered for that job, isn't it true that millions of jobs will be lost by Americans to foreign labor willing to work at a lower wage? When an employer lowers the wage of a job so only a foreign worker will take the job, as is already happening in construction trades and many other occupations, how can anyone say this is not taking jobs away from Americans?"
In "principle," the president's plan would allow "temporary workers" (i.e., illegal aliens) to take jobs for a three-year period, renewable for another three-year period. But what if that worker marries and has children while here. "(W)ill the plan require him to go home? If he returns home, what happens to his wife and children?" Does the U.S. government (i.e., taxpayers) take responsibility for these offspring citizens, paying for their educations and medical care?
Current laws prohibiting the hiring of illegal aliens are virtually unenforceable. What really will change? Will proof of "illegal legal" status be required? Will there be enforcement? How? What will be the penalties?
An estimated 400,000 illegals remain at large in the U.S. today. Among them, 100,000 "criminal aliens." There are an estimated 2 million tourist, student and extraneous visa "overstays" not rounded up and sent home. Asks Congressman Tancredo: "(W)hy should anyone believe (immigration authorities) will be willing and able to locate and deport an additional 6 million to 8 million 'temporary workers' if these workers choose to stay when their permit expires?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Bush says "the country is less secure than it could be with a rational (immigration) system." But what's "rational" and more "secure" about a "solution" that only exacerbates the illegal immigration problem?
Not a thing.
Sorry, Mr. President. Sorry Gov. Racicot. But you're both wrong.
The president's amnesty plan has gotten a cool reception, especially from congressional conservatives. But that doesn't mean it's dead; it could end up attached to a commonsense measure, excised from the intelligence overhaul bill, to deny illegals driver's licenses. Granting illegals such official documentation is no less than a license to commit fraud.
We must get serious about controlling the influx of illegal aliens into this country in 2005. Instead of euphemizing amnesty, the administration should be euthanizing it.
Colin McNickle can be reached at [email protected] or (412) 320-7836
