http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/200 ... 34747.html

Huckabee opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants, defends worker insurance program on radio show
Thursday, Mar 9, 2006

Sent March 8, 2006
rmjj
By Rob Moritz

Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK - Gov. Mike Huckabee on Wednesday questioned pending federal legislation that would grant amnesty to illegal immigrants and fended off criticism that a new state worker insurance program is socialist.

Huckabee, a possible presidential candidate in 2008, also hedged on when he'll make a decision on whether to make a run for the White House during his monthly statewide radio call-in show.

Huckabee has been sympathetic to the plight of undocumented immigrants in Arkansas, supporting unsuccessful legislation last year that would have granted their children college scholarships and condemning a federal raid on an Arkadelphia poultry plant last year that left children stranded when the government deported their families.

But the governor questioned legislation before the U.S. Senate that would allow most illegal immigrants now in the United States to remain in the U.S. indefinitely as long as they stay employed.

"I really have a problem with just some outright amnesty. It's sending the wrong signal," Huckabee said.

The proposal by Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter would give undocumented workers in the United States for more than two years a work visa once they pass a background check. The visas would be renewable every two years indefinitely.

The workers also would receive labor protections, including the legal right to receive a minimum wage, and they would be eligible to switch jobs, travel home and bring their families to the United States.

"A blanket amnesty is really not, I think, the manner in which to handle the influx of immigration, and part of the problem with that you really don't know who is here, why they're here and what their purpose is," Huckabee said.

"Clearly our laws are antiquated - they don't reflect reality anymore," the governor said, suggesting that some kind of alien worker permit process would be more appropriate.

"They need to tell us who they are, where they are and why they're here, and if they are healthy," Huckabee said. "We need to know that for our own security purposes. We need to know that from a standpoint of public health, and know it from a standpoint of making sure that when people do come, that they are taking jobs because we have no one else to fill them."

Carlos Cervantes of Little Rock, state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said he was surprised by the governor's comments but that he understood them and knows that Huckabee means well.

"The governoer's heart is in the right place and he doesn't want what happened last year to happen again," Cervantes said, referring to last year's Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Arkadelphia.

"There needs to be something corrected, but everything has to be brought to the table for discussion," he said. "The governor is looking for some middle ground that makes everybody happy."

The immigration question was among a wide range of topics that the governor addressed Wednesday in response to callers to his hour-long radio show broadcast live statewide on the Arkansas Radio Network.

A day earlier, the governor announced that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had approved a Medicaid waiver for the Arkansas Safety Net Benefits Program, a pilot project that eventually could provide basic health insurance for up to 80,000 low-income workers through employers with 50 or fewer employees.

Employers and the state and local governments would share the cost of the program. The state's share, about $18 million over five years, would come from proceeds from the state's $1.6 billion tobacco settlement.

A caller to Huckabee's show Wednesday criticized the health insurance program.

"Where in the Arkansas Constitution does it say that it's the governor's role to be behind something like this?" a woman from Cabot asked. "And ... can you explain to private industry how this isn't a compulsory, socialist program?"

The governor said the program was not mandatory and would help thousands of Arkansas workers keep their jobs.

"The fact is, there are many, many Arkansas workers who are one broken arm away from not being able to pay their rent next month," Huckabee said. "They are literally a case of the flu away from not being able to make ... next month's truck payment. And without that truck, they don't get to work.

"It's not a matter of some socialist program, it's a matter of helping working people keep working."

The program's basic benefit package includes six physician visits a year and two prescriptions a month. Enrollees will be required to pay a $15 monthly premium and 15 percent co-payments, with a maximum out-of-pocket cost of $1,000 per year.

Huckabee, who has gained national notoriety as a healthy living advocate since shedding 110 pounds and heightened his national posture as chairman of the National Governors Association, is flirting with a run for president.

He said Wednesday he has no plans to make a final decision until next year but is praying about the matter and talking with friends, and even critics, to get their opinions and thoughts on what he should do.