Thread: Hayworth slams Bush border plan as amnesty for illegals

http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/na...storyID=120182

By HOWARD FISCHER
Capitol Media Services
11/30/2005


PHOENIX -- The president's plan for an expanded guest worker program is really amnesty for those who broke the law by coming here illegally, Congressman J.D. Hayworth said Tuesday.

Hayworth criticized the call Monday by President Bush to make a new guest worker program part of any plan to deal with the problems of illegal border crossers. The six-term Republican congressman said new programs should not even be considered until the border is secure.

Bush wants not only to expand existing programs but also to allow those here illegally to remain for up to six years if they already are employed.

The president insisted in his Tucson speech none of this amounts to amnesty. But Hayworth isn't buying it.

"The translation south of the border is this: You'd better come, you'd better get while the gettin's good, y'all come because they're going to make accommodations, they're going to offer amnesty," Hayworth told Capitol Media Services.

"It may not have been the president's intent," Hayworth said. "But I guarantee you that was the message that was heard south of the border."

Hayworth also disagreed with the president's call for new temporary worker programs, saying employers can already get the employees they need through the existing visas.

But the usefulness of those programs -- especially for agricultural needs -- is under dispute.

In Yuma, which needs 30,000 workers a day during harvest season, farmers tell Capitol Media Services the H2A visa program is unworkable.

"I've never used it," said Mark Spencer, owner of Associated Citrus Packers. "The paperwork scared me off."

Spencer said he needs between 300 and 350 workers a day.

He said the system requires he makes his requests at least 45 days ahead.

More problematic, said Spencer, is the requirement to pay the "prevailing wage" for pickers.

Spencer said his employees get that -- and more, with bonuses based on productivity. He said, though, the U.S. Department of Labor requires he pay a flat hourly rate which eliminates the incentive to work fast.

Rick Rademacher, production manager for Salyer American Fresh Foods, said the program "doesn't fit what we need in Yuma," he said.

He said most workers live across the border and come up solely to work in the fields each day. Rademacher said what's needed is some sort of day-labor system which provides a permit that workers could show at the border each morning and "go home every night."

"We can take a look at streamlining regulation," Hayworth responded. But he said a new guest worker program is not the answer.

Hayworth also said it is unrealistic to assume that if people here illegally can stay for up to six more years, as Bush proposes, the United States will be able to send them home at that time.

"They're going to start families, they're going to have kids here, they're not going to want to leave after six years," he said. Hayworth said that's why his legislation spells out that the right to citizenship for those born here extends only to children where one parent is in this country legally.

The other big program for low-skilled and semi-skilled workers is the H2B visa. This one requires companies to advertise for employees domestically first and work with the state Department of Economic Security as well as federal labor and immigration officials.

Jan Thurgood said this program is workable. His company, Corporate Employee Services, helps firms hire workers ranging from construction to landscaping.

But he said the U.S. Department of Labor doesn't like issuing these visas for jobs lasting more than 10 months. That, he said, can create a gap for companies with year-round needs.

The other is getting enough people: Thurgood said only 66,000 H2B visas are issued nationwide annually. He said last year the quota was filled in the first two months of the fiscal year.

Hayworth's proposal would boost the number of work visas available, though the biggest increase would be in categories which cover professionals, researchers, executives and for skilled workers with at least two years of experience.

I like ALMOST everything Hayworth supported EXCEPT for MORE work visas--especially those for SKILLED, higher-paying jobs that will take even MORE decent jobs from American workers. He is definitely on target about the guestworker fiasco Bush is proposing. There is NO WAY that I would even COME CLOSE to agreeing to that would be if the ANCHOR BABY law was changed to ONLY include babies born here of LEGAL IMMIGRANTS. As long as that anchor baby law is in effect, we just will sit back and watch this country get deeper and deeper in debt. We cannot support this drain on our systems.

Hayworth Quote:
"The translation south of the border is this: You'd better come, you'd better get while the gettin's good, y'all come because they're going to make accommodations, they're going to offer amnesty," Hayworth told Capitol Media Services.

"It may not have been the president's intent," Hayworth said. "But I guarantee you that was the message that was heard south of the border."


The president should be SURE of how things he says might be translated, especially when it could directly worsen the problem he is supposed to be correcting. There is no excuse.

I believe he (Hayworth) knows that, but held back in saying it.

I'm certain Hayworth KNOWS what the President means to do. Legal--you're being WAY too magnanimous to this President! I think you still WANT to believe him. I think you still might be in a state of denial!!!!

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http://www.alipac.us/article-894-thread-1-0.html

The President knows exactly what this stupid pile of crap and ridiculous amnesty plan is, he's been pushing it for five years, only now it has been renamed and repackaged as a "guest worker" program after the original amnesty plan peddled by himself and Vicente Fox was overwhelmingly rejected by the vast majority of the American public, conservative AND liberal.

It's notable that J.D. Hayworth didn't attend the Bush phony immigration dog and pony show in Arizona earlier this week. However, McCain, co-author of the sovereignty killing, border erasing, illegal rewarding Kennedy-McCain amnesty plan was there in full force to support Bush's version of the same thing.

The Bush non-plan retains open borders, illegal immigration, non-enforcement of federal immigration laws, and non-prosecution of employers who hire illegal aliens. In fact, the Bush plan rewards lawbreaking with extended stay for ineligible persons and a free pass for employers to ignore and break wage and hour laws, labor laws, and evade employer paid taxes and legal responsibilities.

In short, the President has proposed the legalization of selective lawbreaking for exclusive classes of people; unavailable, illegal, and punishable for all others. Mr. Bush's plan is as deplorable as it is preposterous and dangerous because it not only disintegrates the foundation of law and order, but leaves the US borders wide open and extremely vunerable to infiltration and attack.

If this garbage has been proposed by Slick Willie during the Clinton administration, Republicans who now circle the President in his defense on this blatant idiocy, would be screaming at the top of their lungs for Clinton's impeachment. The fact that they don't will be their downfall and that is a certainty. George W. Bush, for his profound weakness and concession to liberal politics and special interests will go down in history as the President who lost the Republican majority after 50 long, hard years of conservatives striving to get as far as they did only to be screwed and betrayed.

I just can't take it anymore. Please shoot me now!

God darn Pile-O-Ticks I tell you!

Might as well, Ssnick, because we are just SCREWED if the President gets his way. We MUST fight this with all we have.

"I've never used it," said Mark Spencer, owner of Associated Citrus Packers. "The paperwork scared me off."

What he needs is hefty fine, and a stint in prison with a cellmate named Bubba.

hmmm..After they've been here for six years they won't want to leave...Let me tell you, friends, if we get an even larger influx of immigration...both legal and illegal EVERYONE will want to leave here!!

RR