Posted on 11/28/2005 8:00:30 AM PST by Reagan Man
President Bush is trying to build support for a comprehensive immigration strategy even though Congress has shelved the issue for now.
Republican congressional leaders postponed work on immigration proposals until early next year, partly because lawmakers are divided over the scope of such changes and whether foreigners illegally working in the United States should be allowed to stay.
Trying to keep the heat on lawmakers, the president was scheduled to leave his Crawford, Texas, ranch after spending nearly a week there for Thanksgiving, to pitch his plan in Tucson, Ariz., on Monday, and El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday.
Bush's plan pairs a guest worker program for foreigners with border security enforcement, an attempt to satisfy both his business supporters, who believe foreign workers help the economy, and his conservative backers, who have made fighting illegal immigration a priority.
To that end, the president was expected to focus heavily on border security in remarks at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.
The two-day push comes a month after Bush signed a $32 billion homeland security bill for 2006 that contains large increases for border protection, including 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents.
Senate GOP leaders plan to take up legislation early next year that will address the contentious issue of a guest worker program. Their counterparts in the House have indicated they want to take up border security first and then move to a guest worker program.
Bush has been urging Congress to act on a guest worker program for more than a year. Under his plan, undocumented aliens would be allowed to get three-year work visas. They could extend that for an additional three years, but would then have to return to their home countries for a year to apply for a new work permit.
While in Arizona on Monday, the president also planned to attend a fundraiser in Phoenix for Republican Sen. Jon Kyl as campaigning for next year's congressional elections gets under way.
After almost five years in office, PresBush has ignored the illegal immigration issue. He wants the borders kept open for two reasons. The Hispanic vote in 2006 and continued flow of cheap labor for big donor GOP businesses. Its baffling to see the President prosecute the WOT in Iraq with such determination, while he turns a blind eye to the issue of US border security. Just how long does Bush believe he can dodge this issue before it bites him in the butt and more Americans are killed by terrorists. Support will collapse for the President if there is a terrorist attack that is linked to an illegal border crossing.
Plan?
What Plan?
Senator KB Hutchinson: 'we have captured 150,000 OTM' We can't even hold the ones we capture now.
[OTM is 'other than Mexican']
Sec. Chertoff -- allow illegals to register, work 3 years, and then send them home. [Yeh right, like that would ever happen.]
===
Amnesty by any name is still amnesty.
I am convinced any sort of guest worker program that remotely offers a chance at citizenship to illegal aliens will be met with a resounding, "HELL NO!"
And if such proposal ever sees daylight in Congress, those who might sneak a midnight "yea" vote will be departing Washington soon afterwards.
TYPO.... The above should be:
In an attempt to drive his approval rating to zero, President Bush will once again push for his idiotic, unamerican, Amnesty Program for criminal invaders who ignore all U.S. laws. This is in spite of Congress repeatedly telling him - though mostly not in public, that he's nuts and the American people are getting tired of this nonsense.There, fixed it.
Yah, that's a real plan. /sarc
I'm waiting for GWB to explain how 15 million "guest worker visa" applications are going to be processed by CIS/ICE, which has a current 1.5 million backlog of legal applications (I won't bother to describe how CIS has "reduced the backlog" recently, using a transparent and juvenile shell game).
Also waiting to hear how legal and law abiding applicants who've been in the system for years will be protected from the onslaught of lawbreaker applications.
Can't wait to see how our adoption paperwork will be affected by 15 million illegals.
No guest worker program. Never. Ever. It is not up for discussion. Subject closed. Period.
Got that?
Bush tells us that we can't just cut-and-run in Iraq. Good, I understand that. So why is his "solution" to illegal immigration exactly that? Just throwing up your hands, "admitting" that you can't do anything about illegal immigration, and just legalizing them doesn't make the problems go away. It's totally ridiculous!
Simple.
Bush will tell ICE to move them to the back of the line, bottom of the stack. After all, since they've waited years now, what's a few more.
Elitism, Republican-style. Who cares what the voters want?
Moreover, where are the personnel and systems that will be employed to process and manage these 15 million "guest worker" visas?
CIS is broken - everyone in DC knows it - and GWB wants to add an additional 15 million applications?!?!?!
It is completely insane.
Juan and Juanita are busy packing their meager belongings and are headed for the border as George speaks. They have lots and lots of people coming with them. Thankyou Mr. Bush!!! (sarc)
Down the drain hell. He'll be impeached and convicted in the senate - and deservedly so.
His inaction on US border security, aka American Sovereignty, is bordering (no pun) on Treason.
It wouldn't surprise me.
For the last year, CIS has been claiming that it's "reduced the application backlog", when all it has actually done is to stop counting certain categories of applications.
It sounds too incredible to be true - no agency would be so brazenly deceptive - but if you read the fine print, that's what they've done. Nothing.
A guest worker plan, with the stated aim of "working for 6 years, then forcing their return is a JOKE AND DISHONEST.
First of all, how many of the illegals who would even register does the President HONESTLY think will not have "anchor babies" during this 6-year period, thereby making it all but impossible to enforcing their return to their "home" countries? The ACLU, and others of their ilk, has more than likely already drafted boiler template motions for filing in courts across America to use against the U.S. "forced" return of illegals in the President's "plan."
Secondly, we already hear how "unfair" it is to "uproot" illegals who have made America their "home" by being in America for x, y, or z years....now we'll get to hear how "cruel and inhumane" it will be to "trick" illegals into registering so they can later be deported.
Then we'll get to hear how the illegals, who have registered, have "followed the law" and they have a "right" to STAY IN THE U.S.......indefinitely. Every excuse in the book will be given for illegals to stay here, even though they never waited in line to get in and jumped in front of those who have.
As far as 1,000 border patrolmen/women being added, that's a joke. How many MILES AND MILES of open borders do we have? If the President had been serious about border patrol/illegal immigration, he would done something immediately after 9/11 and the number of border patrol would be in numbers appropriate for the task. Had the President been serious about patrolling our border, he would not have pulled off how many border patrol from patrolling the borders during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Had the President been serious about the borders, the Minutemen would never have even organized to do the Fed's job. Had the President been serious about patrolling our borders and keeping Americans safe, he would not have been calling the Minutemen "vigilantes."
Bush Seeks Momentum for Immigration Plan President Bush will get zero support from this FReeper.
IMHO, his allowing the Criminal Aliens to overrun our country, abuse our welfare system and cause needed hospitals to close borders on a criminal act.
God help him (and us) if there is a terrorist attack that originates from south of the border.
I'd like to give El Presidente Jorge Busho a nice pat on the butt for pulling this stunt. One of his handlers told him that the taco vote put him over the top in the last election, so now he's busy selling out the whole country to them. Not smart.
Wow, it took us five years just to get Bush to pay lip service to this problem. In another five he might actually want to do something about it -- whoops, he'll be out by then.
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