President's guest worker proposal is both dangerous and unworkable

There is at least one positive development that has come as a result of President Bush's recent "guest worker" proposal: It has sparked a vigorous and long overdue national debate on immigration policy. Both sides of the issue agree that our current policy is not working. That, however, is where agreement ends.

One basic flaw with the president's proposal is its offer of amnesty to millions of people who have violated federal law. The president says his proposal is not an amnesty for illegal aliens already in the country, but he can say this only by redefining amnesty as a path to citizenship, and by using euphemisms like "regularization," "normalization" and a slew of others to soften the reality.

Linguistic gymnastics notwithstanding, permitting 9 million to 12 million illegal aliens to obtain legal status in this country without criminal penalty is, by definition, amnesty.

The core of the Bush proposal is to offer "renewable" three-year visas for "temporary" work in the U.S., but this is disingenuous at best. Few if any of these "temporary" workers will ever return to their home country. Why should they? If history tells us anything, meaningful enforcement of these limits will be weak and ineffectual. It is worth remembering that an estimated 40 percent of the illegal aliens in the country now are illegal because they overstayed their visa.

A basic problem with the plan is the standard used for determining the "need" for guest workers. The president has repeatedly said that the goal of the program is to "match willing employers with willing workers." I have news for him: There are at least a billion "willing workers" across the planet who will gladly take jobs at lower wages than Americans now doing those jobs. The president's plan places no numerical limit on the number of such guest workers. There is no job beneath any hard-working American, just jobs that pay too little to support their families.

The cliched justification for this whole guest worker plan and for our open borders policy generally is that foreign workers "only take jobs Americans will not do." This is hogwash. There are a handful of agricultural jobs that have traditionally used migrant workers, but our open borders have brought a flood of cheap labor into dozens of other workplaces - hotels, restaurants, fast-food services, construction, gardening and landscaping, and meat-packing to name only a few.

The fundamental problem in these sectors is not a lack of American workers willing to fill the jobs. It is the simple greed of employers who can both hire an illegal worker at a lower wage and escape the cost of providing health insurance, workman's compensation and other benefits - benefits that American workers have come to expect.

Millions of blue-collar jobs are being depressed by this flow of cheap labor, primarily from Mexico and Central America. Harvard economist George Borjas has shown that American workers' wages are depressed each year in the amount of 1.9 percent of gross domestic product due to competition from cheap labor provided by foreign workers, both legal and illegal. In 2003 that was $190 billion in lost wages for American workers. Given how damaging these failed immigration policies are to the livelihoods of America's working families, one wonders why labor unions remain silent on this issue.

Everyone knows that attaining a reasonable level of border security is a crucial prerequisite of any guest-worker program, yet the president's proposal lacks a border security component. Mexico uses its military to control entry across its southern border with Guatemala and Belize. We need to follow Mexico's example.

We cannot merely pretend that there are no costs to our society in continuing to wink at the massive flow of illegal aliens across our borders. More than 20 percent of the inmates in our jails and prisons, for example, are illegal aliens. What is the added cost to law enforcement and our courts, not to mention the victims of crime, in dealing with this new population? Our experience with the 1986 amnesty program should tell us that Bush's amnesty program will only encourage a new wave of illegal immigration.

Already many activist pro-immigration groups are saying that the president's program does not go far enough and that illegal workers will ignore it and continue to work "underground." As a result of the federal government's failure to protect our borders, state taxpayers have been unfairly required to pick up illegal immigration's tab. It has also forced Americans and legal residents to live in a country that puts them at risk to potential terrorists who can easily seep through porous borders.

Any immigration reform plan that does not adequately secure the United States' borders should be viewed as a failure of Congress and this administration.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, is in his third term in the U.S. House and represents the state's 6th Congressional District.

We need more people like this running for office!

Oberweis milks immigration issue
Chicago Sun-Times: January 17, 2004 -- by Thomas Roeser

There's no doubt that Jim Oberweis, the conservative Aurora ice cream retailer-stock analyst candidate for the GOP Senate nomination, is not like some other candidates: touting here-again, gone-again issues like flavors of the month (pun intended). Since mid-November, he has been stressing far more than his competitors illegal immigration as a major U.S. problem. Now he is taking on the president of the United States, pledging to work against George W. Bush's immigration reform plan. It's a gutsy gamble because Bush is hugely popular with Republicans, but if Oberweis succeeds, he just might dominate the movement-conservative market to win his party's nod March 16.

Not content with just making speeches opposing Bush's plan to give foreign guest workers legal status for three years if they can get work visas tied to specific jobs, Oberweis has taken to the paid radio airwaves. In commercials beamed on 17 stations statewide plus the Rush Limbaugh program in Illinois, Oberweis declares, ''I have been a supporter of President Bush on taxes, on terrorism and his opposition to gay marriage. But I must stand opposed to the administration's plan to liberalize immigration laws. Illegal immigration fosters disrespect for the rule of law, results in lower wages for American families and costs taxpayers millions for government services. The president's plan is just plain wrong.

''I want to be the voice for Illinois voters to tell the president we think illegal immigration cannot be rewarded with amnesty. If you agree, call me toll free at (888) 338-4455. Sign up to oppose the president's initiative. And join my campaign for straight talk in the U.S. Senate.''

A 2002 Zogby poll showed that 68 percent of Americans are so worked up about illegal immigration that they want troops posted on the border. Not only that, but last year a Roper/ASW poll showed that 83 percent support mandatory detention, forfeiture of property and deportation.

On my WLS radio talk show last Sunday, listeners jammed the phones with protests (several conservatives said they wouldn't vote again for Bush). Oberweis' commercial resonating across the state has caused five additional phones to be installed in his Aurora headquarters. So far, not much has been heard from most of his GOP opponents on the issue.

Is this a replay of Know Nothing nativism that opposed immigration in the mid-19th century? That is not the case with Oberweis, who stresses his opposition only to rewarding illegal immigration. As senator, Oberweis says he would concentrate on two items: ''the security and safety of our families, and opportunities for our citizens to work and thrive and build for the future."

''I think a major threat to both of these goals has been the reluctance of our political leaders to take on the problem of the overflow of illegal aliens in our country. Some argue that we should ignore illegal immigration since these people are doing jobs Americans won't do. I say, nonsense. The main effect of illegal immigration on our economy is to depress American wages on the one hand and stifle the drive for creation of labor-saving devices on the other.

''As a result of illegal immigration, we live in a society of increasingly threatened national security, higher crime, loss of jobs, competition for basic social services, divisive cultural and linguistic problems and longer waits and higher rates for health care,'' he said. ''Illegal immigration also breeds a general disrespect for the law and punishes those who are trying to immigrate to our country legally. This must stop!

''Many of the decisions made by our political leaders defy common sense. Illegal aliens in Illinois now pay in-state tuition rates for a college education while a United States citizen in Iowa pays twice as much. The Legislature came within a few votes of authorizing driver's licenses for illegal aliens.''

Oberweis supports legislation requiring state and local law enforcement authorities to apprehend and turn over to the INS illegal immigrants they contact.

Most establishment Republicans list only two prospective winners in the primary: Jack Ryan and Andy McKenna. Elbowing them out of the way might well be Oberweis, who is fast developing as a crusader on an issue that throbs with emotion for many movement conservatives.

http://www.oberweisforsenate.com/

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