Immigration in the News

Matt Welch | November 22, 2004

Bush vows to create a "guest worker program" during a meeting with the Mexican president, insists it's not "amnesty"; meanwhile, the 9/11 security reform bill is once again held up partly because of House Republican concerns over illegal immigration.

Comments

|11.22.04 @ 3:03PM|#

A damn Mexican just stole my job!

No more immigration!

The Lonewacko Blog|11.22.04 @ 3:10PM|#

• Bush's "guest worker" plan could sharply reduce wages for millions of Americans with higher-wage jobs. It would be open to "nurses, teachers, high-tech workers" and others, and the only wage-related restriction would be the minimum wage. Details here.
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• The House version of the 9/11 bill would have banned the acceptance of Mexican ID cards. The FBI and the DOJ call those cards a security threat. Bush and others don't seem to mind. Those cards are only of use to illegal aliens. Mexican consuls are allowed to travel from outpost to outpost in our country selling those cards to their citizens, and they freely admit they aren't concerned whether the recipient is here legally or not. If you think "California legislators ask Mexican Senate to intervene [in driver's licenses for illegal aliens]" is unacceptable, then allowing foreign agents to pass out Mickey Mouse IDs to their citizens in our country should be unacceptable as well.
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• Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers had a combined total of 63 separate drivers licenses from various states. The House version of the 9/11 bill would have helped prevent driver's license fraud.

See my immigration categories. If you don't read anything else, see Chapter 3 of the 9/11 Commission Staff Report.

|11.22.04 @ 4:09PM|#

"Bush's "guest worker" plan could sharply reduce wages for millions of Americans with higher-wage jobs."

Assuming this is true, it's just another way of saying that the plan could sharply reduce costs for millions of American consumers.

|11.22.04 @ 6:05PM|#

Bush's guest-worker idea was roundly shot down by Liberals and Conservatives alike ... indicating that it's probably worth taking a look at. Remember, Bush was very popular with Hispanics in Texas, and the 2004 election returns are consistent with that. Richard Rodriguez has called Bush our first Brown president, in the same sense that Clinton was our first Black one.

Look, these folks are here and they are here to stay. I live in California. Illegals from Mexico and central America work in our restaurants, pick our fruits and veggies, clean our houses, take care of our kids, tend our gardens. You can't send them all back, nor does it make sense to criminalize their rational economic behavior.

I'm a certified Bush-hater, but his guest-worker plan is the most sensible thing he's ever proposed.

The Lonewacko Blog|11.22.04 @ 10:30PM|#

"Hutchinson�s Remarks Indicate Cheap Labor Bias of Administration":

In a startling interview in the Washington Times, Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Border and Transportation Security, Asa Hutchinson, admits that the immigration enforcement agency that he oversees is not doing its job at the border or in the interior of the country, and that he believes that enforcing our immigration laws are �unrealistic.� Serving as the Bush Administration�s point man to sell a massive illegal alien amnesty and guest worker program, Hutchinson is trying to convince the American public that our only options are massive round-ups of illegal aliens, or legalization of 8 to 12 million illegal aliens.

�The only thing �unrealistic� are the choices the Administration is presenting to the American public,� said Dan Stein, executive director of FAIR. �The idea that the alternative to a sweeping amnesty and an open-ended guest worker program is mass deportation is a nothing more than a political straw man. What they have wanted since the day they took office is to ensure an abundant and steady supply of taxpayer-subsidized labor. Since that idea has been soundly rejected by the American public, they are now sending the Border Czar out to convince us that we really have no choice but to declare an amnesty and open the doors to millions of new guest workers.�

The timing of Hutchinson�s remarks � coming on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary � indicate that the Administration views access to cheap labor as a higher priority than homeland security, and certainly more important than protecting the jobs and wages of middle class workers...

Also see "Hillary Eyeing Immigration as Top 2008 Issue" and "Is Bush Pandering to the Hacendados?". (See description of latter term here.)

|11.22.04 @ 11:04PM|#

Mmmmmm...Cheap labor!

Finally, there's something I can support the Administration on!

|11.23.04 @ 12:16AM|#

So does this "guest worker" program require the following of all the labor laws, such as minimum wage and overtime? Hard to see how it couldn't -- in which case it's hard to see how businesses would ever approve of it.

|11.23.04 @ 1:36PM|#

When amnesties, guest worker programs, etc. are discussed, one thing I haven't heard mentioned is the plight of thousands (at least) of people who are trying to get to or stay in the U.S. by following its existing rules. Sunday Newsday runs an immigration Q&A column that documents the *years* (in many cases) that people must wait to get visas, resident alien permits, etc., while having done nothing wrong. Before any currently illegal immigrants are offered and kind of amnesty or guest worker program, I think that all of those people who are already "in the queue" should be processed swiftly. No illegal immigrant should be put ahead of people who are trying to comply with the law.

I like the idea of open borders. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free ..." is a great sentiment. But as long as people can come to the U.S. illegally and be entitled to benefits that are supplied by taxes (many of which they will not pay), I think that there should be some controls.