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Guest-worker plan draws fire
Latino activists, GOP challenge Bush's proposal

Karina Ioffee
Record Staff Writer
Published Monday, Dec 5, 2005

STOCKTON -- Days after President Bush outlined a new version of a guest-worker program, some Latino activists in San Joaquin County say the proposal is unrealistic and an attempt to attract Latino voters without offering real solutions to the immigration problem.

Last Monday, in a speech at a Tucson, Ariz., Air Force base, Bush called for increased border patrols as well as a temporary-worker program between Mexico and the United States that would give visitors up to six years to work legally in the United States.

After that, immigrants would have to return home and apply for new work visas.

The plan is still in its early stages and already is being challenged by critics from both sides.

Many Republicans feel it is too close to an amnesty program, while others feel it doesn't go far enough in dealing with existing undocumented immigrants.

Several Stockton Latino activists said the move doesn't take into account the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the United States, including roughly a half-million in the Central Valley.

"Because this country has failed for so long to maintain its borders, we have people who have now become part of the mainstream," said Jose Rodriguez, executive director of El Concilio, a nonprofit organization that provides services to the Spanish-speaking community in the Stockton area.

"It's ludicrous to believe that they will just get up and leave when they have homes, pay taxes and have children who are citizens," he said.

Critics such as Rodriguez also say that if workers have to return to Mexico before they get visas, the program could have a disastrous impact on industries that rely on immigrant labor, such as agriculture and some customer-service fields.

Talk of a temporary-worker program is not new but stalled after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Still, many say the only way to deal effectively with the issue is through an amnesty program that would give current illegal immigrants the right to stay in the country.

"If they have been here for a while, been good citizens and not broken the laws of this country, they need to give them a legal right to work here," said Jose Lopez, director of the Migrant Ministry and Hispanic Youth Ministry at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Stockton.

Stella Lopez, president of the Latina Democratic Club in Stockton, said she was happy to hear about the president's proposal even as she remained skeptical about its chances of being passed into law.

She pointed to the federal Bracero program, run by the United States and Mexico through the 1960s, as an example of an effective plan that provided jobs for Mexicans and stimulated the U.S. economy.

"Immigrants are all looking for the American dream," she said. "They are not terrorists; they come here to work."

Other portions of Bush's plan include a new program called interior repatriation, under which people caught entering the country illegally are flown to Mexico and then bused to their own communities, often thousands of miles from the border.

The president also said he would continue increased funding for border security and would work to expedite deportation proceedings.

It's not uncommon for non-Mexican illegal immigrants to be detained as long as three months.

Contact reporter Karina Ioffee at 209 546-8279 or kioffee@recordnet.com