Bush's Immigration Plan Reignites Debate

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

January 8, 2004

Jan. 8--WASHINGTON -- President Bush formally presented his plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws Wednesday, but it drew a largely negative reaction that raised doubts about his ability to push it through Congress.

Anti-immigration groups said Bush's plan to offer legal status to millions of workers who are in the country illegally would bring a flood of new immigrants and drive down wages. Labor unions and immigrant groups called the proposal an election-year ploy that would lead to more exploitation of foreign workers.

The strongest positive reaction came from business leaders, who praised Bush's effort to meet their employment needs while closing the black market in labor.

Under the plan, as many as 8 million workers who are in the United States illegally could become legal by joining a new guest-worker program. New immigrants could enter the country by showing that they have jobs.

The guest workers could stay for three years, with the possibility of extensions. Congress would decide how many extensions a worker could receive.

The proposal, Bush's first initiative of the new election year, reignited the long-running debate over immigration and tossed the issue into the middle of the 2004 presidential campaign. It also inflamed passions over how to deal with the millions of undocumented immigrants who have become a part of life nationwide.

Declaring the current system a failure, Bush said his plan recognizes reality and lets undocumented workers come out into the open.

"Workers who seek only to earn a living end up in the shadows of American life -- fearful, often abused and exploited," he said. "It is not the American way... Our laws should allow willing workers to enter our country and fill jobs that Americans are not filling."

Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez welcomed the proposal, saying it was "the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end." He said the United States needed a more concrete plan to help migrants and U.S. and Mexican officials would "work out the final details" during the Summit of the Americas meeting next week in Monterrey, Mexico.

Derbez and Mexican President Vicente Fox have pushed the United States for a more comprehensive migration accord, but relations have strained in recent years as talks on a proposal have been pushed aside by security concerns after the 9-11 attacks.

Although the goal of closing the underground market for undocumented workers has broad support from business organizations, labor unions and immigrant advocacy groups, the coalition broke apart Wednesday over the details of Bush's plan. Labor leaders and immigrant advocacy groups criticized Bush's refusal to put undocumented workers on a track to full citizenship.

Under the White House plan, undocumented workers who join the guest-worker program could apply for citizenship but they would have no advantage over any other immigrant.

"America is a welcoming country," Bush said, "but citizenship must not be the automatic reward for violating the laws of America."

Nearly all of Bush's Democratic rivals for the White House favor plans that would make it much easier for undocumented workers to become citizens. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said Bush's proposal "leaves foreign workers as fodder for our fields and factories, without giving them a path to legalization."

Labor leaders said Bush's call for full legal rights for guest workers means little if they are in the country temporarily. Guest workers are open to exploitation because they need their employers' assistance to obtain their visas, immigration experts say. An employer, for example, could agree to sponsor only those workers who agree not to join a union.

The Bush proposal gives workers some clout against their bosses by allowing them to switch to another employer under the same visa.

Even so, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the plan would create "a permanent underclass of workers" while "undermining wages and labor protections for all workers."

While critics from the left said Bush's plan wouldn't go far enough, Bush also faces strong Republican resistance. As many as a third of House Republicans are believed to be cool toward the proposal, if not outright hostile, according to analysts on both sides of the issue.

The initiative forces some Republicans to choose between their president and their constituents who resent the flow of immigrants.

About 70 lawmakers, mostly Republicans, have joined a caucus that advocates tougher immigration laws.

To their dismay, Bush's plan would let undocumented workers obtain legal status. The guest workers could freely leave and re-enter the United States and could bring dependents into the country as long as they could show an ability to support them.

"There's nothing more permanent than a temporary worker," said Craig Nelsen, director of ProjectUSA, a group that favors tougher immigration laws. "There's going to be a surge in illegals coming across the border now, hoping to get in on the amnesty."

Talk shows bristled with angry comments.

Patrick Buchanan, a former Republican presidential candidate, called the plan "a massive reward for lawbreaking," and Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., emerging as a leading congressional opponent to Bush's initiative, made repeated TV appearances to denounce the proposal as "dangerous and unworkable."

"The wages for millions of jobs are being kept artificially low because there is a continuing supply of cheap labor," Tancredo said.

Bush's proposal effectively threw support behind much of an immigration bill filed in July by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Like Bush's proposal, Cornyn's bill would create a temporary worker program open to foreigners in their native country and undocumented immigrants already in the United States. But it does not give the workers a fast track to legal permanent residence.

Cornyn, who serves on the Senate Judiciary immigration subcommittee, dubbed his legislation the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2003.

"I would hope that the basic principles that the president has spoken of -- which I believe are contained in the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2003 -- will be passed into law as soon as possible and sent to the president's desk for his signature," Cornyn said.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who will have a lot of say in what type of bill comes to the House floor for a vote, said guest worker programs can curb undocumented immigrants, grow the economy, provide homeland security and create jobs.

But he differed with the president on who should participate.

"I applaud the president for addressing this complex and important issue, but I have sincere reservations about allowing illegal immigrants into a U.S. guest worker program, because it has the potential to reward illegal behavior and I am skeptical that it constitutes sound public policy," said DeLay, R-Sugar Land.

If approved by Congress, Bush's plan would be the biggest overhaul of U.S. immigration laws since the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which granted legal status to nearly 3 million undocumented workers. The act also imposed sanctions on employers, but enforcement proved virtually impossible.

Former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., a co-sponsor of the 1986 law, said Bush could face the same political firestorm he confronted in trying to negotiate the morass of competing interests over immigration.

"I just know it will be very hot politically in an election year," Simpson said. "If it's perceived as simply something to attract Hispanic voters, it's going to fail."

By Dave Montgomery and Ron Hutcheson. Washington Bureau, Knight Ridder News Service, Knight Ridder Washington Correspondent Ken Moritsugu contributed to this report, which includes material from the Associated Press.

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