Thread: Dick Armey: Taking the middle ground on immigration reform

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Taking the middle ground on immigration reform

By Dick Armey
July 14, 2006

In his 1989 farewell address, President Reagan described America as a “shining city upon the hill,” quoting the Pilgrim John Winthrop, an early “freedom man.” In this vision Winthrop saw a “tall, proud city – teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace – with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.”

With the passage of an immigration bill before this fall's elections seen as a political priority, Congress should remember Reagan's idea of America as a beacon to those yearning for freedom, peace and prosperity. None can exist without the others. Only a law true to these Republican principles will provide a solution to immigration reform.

There are two camps in immigration reform; the enforcement camp, which worries that illegal immigration threatens the peace of the nation and its laws, and the guest-worker camp, who worry that without these immigrants our prosperity will be at risk. But in reality, the goals of the two camps are complementary, not contradictory: With a legal path to work comes secure borders, and with secure borders comes economic prosperity.

To protect America from terrorism, drug trafficking and lawlessness, those in favor of an enforcement-only approach propose massive increases in funding for border control to stop the flow of illegal aliens across the U.S.-Mexico border. It is imperative, they argue, to regain control of the border, and with good reason. In 2005, Customs and Border Patrol stopped 1,189,114 people from illegally crossing the border, including more tha n 200 from Middle Eastern countries such as Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

But few border crossers are terrorists or criminals. They are men and women taking enormous risks in order to find work or to be with their families. These workers are essential to our society. It is estimated that each job that these workers fill has a ripple effect and supports three and a half other jobs elsewhere in the economy. Any effort to limit their numbers below what businesses need would harm the economy. Legislation that brings these two warring factions together is the only way a bill reaches the president's desk.

One such proposal is the Border Integrity and Immigration Reform Act, drafted by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind. Pence's bill has something to offer both sides – an approach that eases border security concerns by giving law-abiding job seekers a legitimate path to the American workplace, and a guest-worker program that accepts that these workers are necessary and helpful to the economy. And it goes one step further by allowing the free market to shape the guest-worker program businesses need and privatizes the issuance of work permits in the process, easing the burden on taxpayers.

Instead of government quotas, for the first three years businesses would hire as many guest workers as needed after first showing that they could not find enough American workers for the job. Rather than expanding the federal immigration bureaucracy that has failed to secure our borders, private companies would match willing workers with available jobs, improving efficiency and decreasing costs. This way, those seeking legitimate work would pay for their own visa processing, rather than burdening the taxpayers.

With the Pence plan, workers would remain in their own country until they qualified for a visa. After clearing a background check, guest workers would receive an identification card with critical information such as where they are employed, as well as biometric information such as a fingerprint. When hiring, businesses would merely swipe this card to see if an individual is in the database and is approved to work. By implementing this system, there would be far fewer incentives to hire illegal workers and even fewer incentives for workers to cross the border illegally.

This is not an amnesty bill. The guest-worker program is completely separate from the naturalization process. The more efficient, private-sector job-matching process would keep foreign workers from getting impatient and crossing the border in search of a better life before being granted their visas. It also avoids an ineffectual buildup of border agents – as occurred between 1993 and 2000, when the number of agents more than doubled while the number of illegal immigrants in the country increased by 4.5 million people.

Polling done by FreedomWorks has found that this approach is more widely accepted than either the pro-amnesty or enforcement-only options. It brings together Republican voters, garnering higher approval numbers than either border security or guest-worker proposals do alone. Most important, it would allow us to remain true to President Reagan's vision of America as a “city upon on a hill,” shining with freedom.


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Armey, a former House majority leader, is chairman of FreedomWorks (www.freedomworks.com), a grass-roots organization that advocates for less government, lower taxes and more freedom.

Poppy-cock!

The Pence plan is amnesty in a red dress. What in the world makes Pence, or anyone else for that matter, think all the illegal immigrants in the United States are going to pack up and go home and wait for an approved work visa? What about the illegals already established in the United States, they are not going to risk leaving the country on a promise. Immigration needs reduced, but the Pence plan has absolutely no limits during the first three years. This is a horrible plan, but the media is grabbing hold for all it's worth. I guess that is because they know for a fact the Senate bill will never fly and they don't want the house bill to pass - so, the only chance corporate America and Bush see right now is the Pence plan. Hopefully the House won't fall for it, but it does appear some are bending toward it.