Thread: Amnesty, what amnesty?

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/n ... 903032.htm

Posted on Sat, Feb. 18, 2006

Amnesty, what amnesty?

Should illegal aliens in U.S. be eligible for guest worker program?

TOM ASHCRAFT
Special to the Observer

In the arcane world of U.S. immigration policy, what is "amnesty"? With a few short lines in his State of the Union speech, President Bush put the fat in the frying pan.

"Keeping America competitive," he said, "requires an immigration system that upholds our laws, reflects our values and serves the interests of our economy. Our nation needs orderly and secure borders. To meet this goal, we must have stronger immigration enforcement and border protection. And we must have a rational, humane guest worker program that rejects amnesty, allows temporary jobs for people who seek them legally, and reduces smuggling and crime at the border."

A "guest worker program that rejects amnesty" was more incendiary in the Republican camp than in the Democratic. The Senate will soon take up the immigration reform bill passed under House Republican leadership last December. Emphasizing enforcement, including nearly 700 miles of fencing along U.S.-Mexico border, it rejects amnesty for illegal aliens already in the country and does not include a guest worker program.

Temporary legal status

President Bush has long advocated immigration reforms, prominently including a guest worker program. Bush's proposal, as outlined in early 2004, would grant legal status for three years, subject to renewal, to undocumented workers already here and to foreign nationals abroad who have been offered U.S. employment. Qualifying positions would only be "when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs."Further, illegals in the country who sign up would be required to pay a one-time fee. All participants would have to return to their home countries at the end of the temporary work period before they could apply for "green cards" as permanent legal residents, leading to naturalization as American citizens.

For those seeking citizenship, Bush said in 2004, they "will be allowed to apply in the normal way. They will not be given unfair advantage over people who have followed legal procedures from the start. I oppose amnesty, placing undocumented workers on the automatic path to citizenship. Granting amnesty encourages the violation of our laws, and perpetuates illegal immigration. America is a welcoming country, but citizenship must not be the automatic reward for violating the laws of America."

With these words, Bush seemed to register his disagreement with the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which provided four avenues to amnesty as part of an overall compromise promising stricter immigration enforcement in the future. The two largest categories granted legal status for undocumented foreigners in the country continuously since the beginning of 1982 and certain farm workers present for 90 days prior to May 1, 1986. More than 3 million people applied under the 1986 law, and most were granted legal status, opening the way to citizenship.

Enforcement neglected

The hoped-for future enforcement never materialized. Illegals have grown from approximately 2.5 million in the mid-1980s to probably more than 11 million today. Many critics believe that the amnesty provisions created a dynamic which encouraged more illegal immigration despite the new mechanism of employer sanctions.

One of the staunchest opponents of the current Bush proposal is House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican first elected to Congress in 1978. His view of amnesty directly contradicts Bush's.

"[A] guest-worker program that applies to illegal aliens already here is an amnesty," Sensenbrenner told The Washington Times recently. "Now people who support that will say it's not an amnesty. But if it ends up saying that you're here illegally, and we're going to give you a guest-worker card, even if it does not ripen into citizenship, [it] means that you are able to stay here notwithstanding the fact that you violated the law. ... [H]ow do you get them to go back home when they expire? And we end up simply postponing the decision on what to do about illegal aliens until the end of the validity of these cards."

The result: Surrender

Sensenbrenner has many allies among his Republican colleagues. Congressman J.D. Hayworth of Arizona said in an interview this month with Human Events: "[T]his guest-worker program is driven by the most craven and cynical special interests. Big Business believes it gets an almost endless supply of cheap labor. The left believes it gets a source of cheap votes. And the American people get a huge bill to pay in terms of entitlements that people, quite frankly, are not entitled to. We've just got to stop this because guest worker equals amnesty equals surrender."

Sensenbrenner and Hayworth have common sense on their side, but the legislative outcome is far from certain.

Tom
Ashcraft


Observer columnist Tom Ashcraft is a Charlotte lawyer. Write him c/o The Observer, P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28230-0308, or at tashcraft@bellsouth.net.

Originally Posted by Charlotte Observerf

Should illegal aliens in U.S. be eligible for guest worker program?

No!

Had_Enuf, how about some tough questions? I fell asleep while I was answering that one.

Quote:
"[T]his guest-worker program is driven by the most craven and cynical special interests. Big Business believes it gets an almost endless supply of cheap labor. The left believes it gets a source of cheap votes. And the American people get a huge bill to pay in terms of entitlements that people, quite frankly, are not entitled to. We've just got to stop this because guest worker equals amnesty equals surrender."

Isn't it great when you hear people in Washington speaking the TRUTH !?