Posted on 11/21/2004 11:58:58 PM PST by markkind
I am not a fan of George W. Bush. I voted for him, I donated money to the Republican Party in order to help him get re-elected and I frequently defended him against nearly everyone I came in contact with (I live in a Blue state, after all). But that doesn't mean I like everything he does, or even most things he does. One of my biggest issues with President Bush was his "Guest Worker" program that he unveiled last January. If the Democrats had ran someone against President Bush whom was a Foreign Policy hawk and would have at least promised to tighten up the boarder, I could have been convinced to vote for said person. Alas, the Dems ran Kerry and I would have rather sat the election out than vote for him.
The "Guest Worker" program was a phenomenally stupid idea that would have inevitably done irreparable harm to our economy as well as expose the country even more so than it already is to terrorists. Even now there are terrorists trying to enter our country through Mexico. This from Time Magazine:
"Sharif al-Masri, an Egyptian who was captured in late August near Pakistan's border with Iran and Afghanistan, has told his interrogators of "al-Qaeda's interest in moving nuclear materials from Europe to either the U.S. or Mexico," according to a report circulating among U.S. government officials.
Masri also said al-Qaeda has considered plans to "smuggle nuclear materials to Mexico, then operatives would carry material into the U.S.," according to the report, parts of which were read to TIME. Masri says his family, seeking refuge from al-Qaeda hunters, is now in Iran." (credit Time.com)
Now I thought the plan that was unveiled in January was dead on arrival. This is politics after all and just because a politician says something, that doesn't mean he or she is actually serious about it. I thought at the time that President Bush was just throwing a bone out to the Hispanic population in order to curry favor and votes from them. A March 4th, 2004 story in the Detroit Free Press calmed my nerves at the time.
"President George W. Bush's plan to ease immigration laws is dead on arrival in Congress, doomed by opposition from Republicans who say it goes too far and Democrats who say it doesn't go far enough.
Although White House officials had hoped the plan would boost Bush's standing with Hispanics, it has turned out to be a flop. Some of the strongest opposition comes from the president's fellow Republicans, especially in California and other states with large immigrant populations." (credit freep.com)
However, while driving to my weekly, Sunday touch football game, I heard this on the Monica Crowley program (courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, "Bush Renews Migrant Pledge - President tells Mexican leader Vicente Fox that he plans to push ahead with a measure to give illegal immigrants guest-worker status.
SANTIAGO, Chile — President Bush vowed Sunday to push a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States as guest workers even though it appears unlikely to win backing in a Congress that grew more conservative in this month's elections.
Bush made the commitment during a half-hour meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox in the Chilean capital, where the two leaders are attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference." (credit latimes.com)
Have you ever had one of those moments where you're driving and you suddenly stop and pull over to the side of the road, turn the car off but leave your hands on the steering wheel and just let out a great, big, cleansing sigh? With all due respect to the President of the US and the leader of the free of world...are you an idiot?
You can't possibly be serious about domestic terrorism and then push for a plan that allows undocumented, illegal immigrants to become "guest workers" in the United States. I think our current immigration policies are flawed enough as it is without further eroding them into nonexistence which this plan most certainly would.
People have heard the old saying, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." President Bush would do well to remember the lessons of 9/11; specifically the ones concerning the 9 out of 19 hijackers that were in the country illegally. In case you've forgotten, here's a piece from CNN on October 11, 2001:
"The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) said Thursday at least nine of the 19 hijackers were in the United States legally on September 11. Of four others who had been granted nonimmigrant visas, at least three had overstayed those visas. The INS said it has no conclusive records yet on the remaining six hijackers.
The agency stressed its information is incomplete as investigators continue to learn more about when and how the hijackers entered the U.S.
The information was released after INS Commissioner James Ziglar, appearing before a Congressional panel Thursday, said he believed 10 of the hijackers had been in the U.S. legally at the time of the attacks." (credit CNN.com)
I am sure most of the immigrants coming into America from Mexico are not potential terrorists and only want to provide for their families. That's fair enough. However, as much as I think America benefits from LEGAL immigration and naturalization, I am adamantly oppose to illegal immigration and I'm not interested in the supposed "benefits" of "cheap immigrant labor". They say you cannot just round up all the illegal immigrants and deport them. I say we put a man on the moon, we can do anything we want that we put our minds to. Right now I think we need to be taking a closer look at the boarders and our relative safety and start making some rational decisions.
This is from (FAIR) website (www.fairus.org): "The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization of concerned citizens who share a common belief that our nation's immigration policies must be reformed to serve the national interest.
Why Amnesty Isn't the Solution
In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) giving amnesty — legal forgiveness — to all illegal aliens who had successfully evaded justice for four years or more or were illegally working in agriculture. As a result, 2.8 million illegal aliens were admitted as legal immigrants to the United States. In addition, they have so far brought in an additional 142,000 dependents.
Various Amnesties of Illegal Aliens
IRCA (including dependents) 2,831,351
NACARA 405,000
Haitian Act 50,000
INA Section 249 (from 1987-1997) 69,670
TOTAL 3,356,021
The amnesty permanently added millions of poor to our society.
An Immigration and Naturalization Service study found that after ten years in the United States, the average amnestied illegal alien had only a seventh grade education and an annual salary of less than $9,000 a year.1 Unlike immigrants with a sponsor who guarantees they will not become a burden on the public, when Congress enacts an amnesty, it makes the American public financially responsible for those amnestied.
The cost of amnesties to the American taxpayer is staggering.
According to a study by the Center for Immigration Studies, the total net cost of the IRCA amnesty (the direct and indirect costs of services and benefits to the ex-illegal aliens, minus their tax contributions) after ten years comes to over $78 billion.2
Amnesty disguises the extent of illegal immigration.
Apologists for illegal immigration have actually had the nerve to claim that, because the number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. today (between 8.7 and 11 million) is about the same as the number living here ten years ago, illegal immigration must not be that big of a problem. In doing so, they rely on the public’s forgetting that, without the amnesty, there would be closer to 12 or 14 million illegal aliens in the country. It ’s akin to pardoning and releasing everyone in prison, then claiming there is no crime problem because the prisons are empty.
An amnesty sends the message that it is okay to break the law.
An amnesty says that eventually you will be forgiven, even rewarded, for breaking the law. Furthermore, it makes a mockery of the legal immigration process, wherein those who obey the rules wait years to immigrate (instead of “jumping the line” and hoping for absolution later).
The amnesty of illegal aliens skews the average educational and skill level of legal immigrants downward.
As the ex-illegal aliens naturalize and become U.S. citizens, they are able to petition for their relatives to join them here as immigrants. Each one will be able to sponsor parents and brothers and sisters as immigrants. Naturally, the profile and characteristics of the relatives will be similar to their sponsoring immigrant—which, as was noted above, will detract from the high-skills, high-education, high-wage economy we are aiming for in the 21st century.
Amnesty has set a dangerous precedent.
The 1986 IRCA amnesty has created the atmosphere for illegal aliens’ home governments to push our government toward another amnesty or other forms of legal “forgiveness. ” Mexico’s President Vicente Fox began in 2001 to push the United States to “regularize” the status of the estimated three to six million illegal aliens from Mexico in this country. Those who profit from illegal immigration have jumped on the bandwagon and political pressure is building to repeat what was billed in 1986 as the first and last amnesty for illegal aliens.
Amnesty threatens homeland security.
Aliens who apply in the home countries to become legal immigrants to the United States are screened by U.S. consular officials to weed out any criminals or likely terrorists. Millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. have evaded this screening; amnesty would make them legal aliens without the necessary safeguards to ensure that they are not dangers to our national security. Report on the Legalized Alien Population, Immigration and Naturalization Service, M-375, March 1992. Measuring the Fallout: The Cost of the IRCA Amnesty After 10 Years, Center for Immigration Studies, May 1997.
Updated 10/02"
That was October of 2002, God only knows what the figures are like now. Whether it's an Amnesty or a "Guest Worker" program, it's the same thing...bad for America. Of all the policies to stand by with a mandate from the public after a general election, President Bush has decided to stand by an idea that will not only move to bankrupt this country but put us all in grave danger.
I think I'm having buyer’s remorse.
This was an interesting article, too bad no one saw it. Next time put "immigration" in your keywords and it'll be seen.
BTW, welcome to FreeRepublic. Are you ready for your first flame war? LOL!!
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