Posted on 01/23/2004 12:27:48 PM PST by ckilmer
BUSH PLAN A MAGNET
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Immigrants cite lure of border proposal
By Joe Cantlupe COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
and Gregory Alan Gross STAFF WRITER
January 23, 2004
WASHINGTON – More than half the people accused of using phony documents to sneak through the San Ysidro port of entry in recent days said they were trying to get into the United States because of President Bush's proposal to give temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.
Of 162 people stopped for using phony documents at San Ysidro since Bush announced his plan on Jan. 7, 94 said they were trying to enter because of the proposed new work program, according to sources present at a Wednesday meeting of a border-security working group in San Diego.
Border Patrol officials have reported a 15 percent increase in the use of phony documents at the San Ysidro port compared with the same period a year ago.
Bush's plan, designed to match willing workers with willing employers, would provide temporary legal status to illegal immigrants working in the United States and to others outside the country if they can show they have a job offer.
His proposal has been widely publicized in Mexico. In some quarters, it is being characterized as an amnesty, despite Bush's contention that it is not.
Some U.S. border enforcement officers and immigration policy experts have predicted that just talking about the proposal would encourage more people to try to get into the country.
"We're getting a lot of people asking about this," said senior border agent Sean Moran, who works in Imperial Beach. "They're asking what they need to do to qualify."
Many of the immigrants are "first-timers," said Moran, who also serves as spokesman for Local 1613 of the agents' union, the National Border Patrol council.
"At the Imperial Beach station where I work, I've noticed a definite spike in apprehensions," he said. "We're also catching more women and children, which we haven't in awhile. We're catching a lot of the same people every day."
Department of Homeland Security officials said the increases began in October, well before Bush unveiled his proposal.
"We were starting to see increases in the beginning of the fiscal year," said Mario Villarreal, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.
The Border Patrol's San Diego sector headquarters reported 31,204 apprehensions of illegal immigrants between Oct. 1, 2003, which was the start of the fiscal year, and this week. For the same period a year ago, the number was 22,375.
Moran said he saw a surge last fall, but has seen another since Bush's announcement.
"There were a handful compared to several dozen now – an eightfold increase, and it all started with Bush's announcement," Moran said.
"These people are mostly volunteering the information. We are asking them, just out of curiosity, why they are here and they are asking how they qualify for this amnesty."
Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD, said he isn't surprised by an upturn in illegal immigration.
"It's not huge, considering the saturation publicity this has gotten in Mexico," Cornelius said. "It's predictable. This will continue until the new rules of the game are crystal clear ... maybe once Congress gets around to acting on the Bush proposal a year or so from now. We're looking at a fairly long period."
Talk of any amnesty-type program "attracts more illegal immigrants and that's not surprising," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.
"The news doesn't necessarily spread accurately in Mexico or even among illegal aliens in the U.S.," Krikorian said. "They suspect there's an amnesty in effect. This is just attracting more illegal aliens and demoralizing our law enforcement personnel."
Immigration lawyers and immigrant rights groups say they, too, are getting inquiries from immigrants hoping to take advantage of Bush's proposal. "News travels quickly," said Angela Kelley of the National Immigration Forum, "and people are yearning for a better life."
Christian Ramirez, of the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego, said his group got at least 50 calls the day after Bush unveiled his proposal, "and it's been a constant flow ever since."
So far, Ramirez hasn't noticed any great influx, but as the immigration debate continues, he expects more people to head for the United States.
The confusion in Mexico about Bush's statements is understandable, Ramirez said, because of the differences between the way government works in Mexico and the way things are done in the United States.
Most Mexicans grew up under a government in which a proposed new policy from the president's office was treated as law.
"Bush made certain allusions, and some media outlets have characterized this as an amnesty, which plays on people's hopes, when in reality there's nothing there for them to grab onto," Ramirez said.
That has happened before, and not exclusively with Mexican migrants.
In the wake of Hurricane Mitch, which left thousands dead in Central America in late 1998, U.S. immigration officials announced that Hondurans and Nicaraguans already in the United States illegally would be granted a temporary legal status.
However, what was meant as a humanitarian gesture from Washington affecting immigrants already here was widely misinterpreted in Central America, especially in hurricane-ravaged Honduras, as a blanket amnesty for the hurricane victims.
Thousands poured across the border through Mexico, heading for the United States, only to be told at the U.S.-Mexico border that they had made the long, dangerous journey in vain.
Members of Mexico's Grupo Beta, which patrols the Mexican side of the border, said it's too early to tell if Bush's announcement is having a major impact on crossings in the Tecate and Mexicali regions.
"These are typically months when a lot of people are crossing," said Marco Antonio Caballero, an agent who works out of the Mexicali region.
Caballero said he recently ran into a migrant who mentioned that he was hoping to work under whatever plan Bush came up with.
But after being caught three times trying to cross the border, being robbed and losing weight, the migrant decided to go home and wait until the plan takes effect.
Dmitri Papademetriou, an analyst with the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., said that by making a public announcement of its intended plans, the United States created "all sorts of expectations across the board."
"The U.S. and Mexico should engage in a public service announcement," he suggested, "explaining there's no advantage to coming across the border illegally."
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greg Gross: (619) 498-6632; greg.gross@uniontrib.com
Staff writer Anna Cearley contributed to this report.
The Mexican elites do not want 20 million guest workers ever coming back to Mexico to live. There is no way Fox would agree to a 3 year temporary status. The elites there want massive immigration rates because they don't wish to change the government or the status quo which for them is working out very well. Things would have to change if these people ever went back --- that's not what they plan to do.
They have to do more than *say* they have a job; they actually have to have one. And the fact that there are conditions to their being able to stay means this is not blanket amnesty. But why am I arguing the point? You're incapable of hearing.
Bush is right on some things --- but on immigration he's dangerously wrong --- it might be a good policy for the Mexican elites and for a while the poverty-stricken of Mexico, maybe good for corporations which want the lowest possible labor costs and to have their workforce subsidized by American taxpayers, but none of this benefits the average American or America. The interests of this country should be put first.
Then why aren't you on the border, machine-gunning them as they try to cross? Where's your commitment?
So it applies to any and all who can get someone to hire them. Employers will have the option of hiring an American at a decent wage or an ILLEGAL at the minimum, it's easy to see how easily they will find jobs.
And the fact that there are conditions to their being able to stay means this is not blanket amnesty.
No, the fact that it applies to ALL ILLEGALS means it is blanket.
But why am I arguing the point? You're incapable of hearing.
I hear just fine. The better question is why am I arguing the point with someone who is either uninformed, in denial, or both.
A classic example of how incapable you are of both intelligent debate and logic.
I can be opposed to Bush's faulty plan and not want to machine-gun anyone down.
At this point, I'm convinced you have no rational argument to defend the proposal, which is fine; I accept that.
But I know I am right. I also know I'm not alone.
Mira, I'm off anyway, to work for a Constitution or Libertarian candidate or something like that (as you; akin to you, per your page) since the GOP is not doing what I want them to do on this issue, by and large.
Exactly!
I have a feeling a "real consevative" to these people means someone who tows the party line and doesn't ask questions. Ironically, that's my definition of a real liberal.
There is a fire station directly across the street from where the men hang out. Not far away, there is a Highway Patrol HQ. Both LAPD and the Sheriff's Dept. patrol the area. Just around the corner there is an L.A. school bus depot. And the men hang out just outside the wall of a new county yard where they auction off impounded vehicles.
All of that local officialdom immediately around the site where these guys hang out, and no one does anything about the men. Heck, I'd wager that many's the cop or fireman who hires these guys for jobs at their own homes.
Therein lies the heart of the problem. For generations, the border states and their local governments have tacitly encouraged Mexican migration while explicitly preventing local law enforcement from doing anything to arrest and deport the illegals. State and local governments do not want to do anything about the problem, which has now become all but intractable. There are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of ethnic Mexicans here in Southern California. In order to round up, identify and deport the illegals, you'd have to round up all ethnic Mexicans — even those who have been here for generations and are American citizens. That would be unconstitutional.
The biggest problem I have with the President's proposal is not the guest-worker part. That seems to me to be humane given the facts on the ground. My problem with it is that it doesn't contain any solid approach to stem the flow of illegal immigration. If the Congress were able to produce a bill that included genuine, hard-nosed provisions to stem the flow, I could support such a bill even if it preserved the guest-worker plan.
But despite my reservations about this proposal, one thing I NEVER will do is withdraw my support from this President.
You raise a good point. I too, live near a Home Depot. I also drive pass tens if not hunderds of ILLEGALS each day. The president's proposal would grant legal status to ILLEGALS who have jobs. What will it do for the tens or hundreds we see each day who loiter outside Home Depots without them? Absolutely nothing. But we already know it's caused an increase in ILLEGAL entries which has added to those numbers.
As for law enforcement doing nothing about ILLEGALS...they can't. ILLEGALS are protected by santuary rules. In my opinion, it stinks. But law enforcement's hands are tied.
I know that's a long read but it's worth it.
ROTFLOL! I can hear the captured illegal alien interviw now!
"Well you see Mister Migra, I had heard something about a 'renewable temporary worker legalization program', and thought, no way, that's not for me. But then while cruising conservative American political websites I came upon the secret truth..."
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