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Subject: NYTimes.com Article: President Says Changes to Immigration Will Help Millions
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004 20:38:51 -0500 (EST)
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President Says Changes to Immigration Will Help Millions
January 7, 2004
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 - President Bush offered a plan today
that he said would help millions of illegal immigrants
working in the United States while also making the country
more secure and prosperous and living up to its finest
ideals.
"By tradition and conviction, our country is a welcoming
society," Mr. Bush said at a special ceremony in the White
House. "We welcome the talent, the character and the
patriotism of immigrant families."
While Mr. Bush said again that he opposed amnesty, which he
said would only encourage lawbreaking and perpetuate
illegal immigration, his proposals would nonetheless
effectively grant a measure of amnesty to illegal
immigrants with jobs.
What Mr. Bush called "a temporary worker program" would
allow foreign workers to come to United States for specific
jobs with specific employers, provided that no American
workers could be found to fill the jobs. It would also
require the return of these temporary workers to their home
countries after their work period was over.
The legal status granted by the program would last three
years, and would be renewable - but it would not be
permanent, Mr. Bush said.
"Participants who do not remain employed, who do not follow
the rules of the program or who break the law will not be
eligible for continued participation and be required to
return to their home," the President said.
(The White House's explanation of the plan is available at
www.whitehouse.gov.)
Mr. Bush's proposals are of vital interest to the millions
of immigrants who work without permission in the United
States as farm laborers, maids and in other positions near
the bottom of the economic ladder.
The proposals are virtually certain to be vigorously
debated in Congress, and among millions of people who are
interested in immigration issues, either out of deep
personal concern or for social-policy reasons.
The possible seeds of some of the arguments were
immediately obvious, perhaps most obviously the provision
that a worker's legal status would expire after three
years, yet be renewable, and yet not be permanent.
How that provision will work in practice, assuming Congress
acts on Mr. Bush's plan, and how much political pressure
there will be to make the workers' legal status permanent
are questions yet to be answered. Another question is how
many illegal workers will still think it safer simply to
remain in the shadows.
Initial reaction to the proposals ranged from warm to tepid
to decidedly cool.
Representative George Miller of California, the senior
Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee,
said he was concerned that the president's program might
not contain enough safeguards.
"At a time when millions of U.S. jobs are being sent
overseas to cheap labor, we must be very careful not to
create a program that drives down wages and then invites
desperate foreign workers to take poverty-level jobs," Mr.
Miller said after the Mr. Bush spoke.
Representative Loretta Sanchez, another California
Democrat, said Mr. Bush's proposals would make the country
more secure, reunite families and fill an economic need.
"We need to know who's here," Ms. Sanchez said on the NBC
"Today" show, before the president spoke but after the
outlines of his proposals had become known. "We have
limited amounts of resources, and we need to target those
resources on people who are here to do us harm, not on
people who are working, who are here as part of our
community, whose children are probably United States
citizens."
But Patrick J. Buchanan, the conservative commentator,
called Mr. Bush's plan "a massive reward for lawbreaking."
"The president of the United States is making a concession
in order to win Hispanic votes," said Mr. Buchanan, who was
interviewed on NBC with Ms. Sanchez. "He cannot or will not
do his duty to enforce the immigration laws of the United
States and to protect the borders of the United States."
The fact that Ms. Sanchez, a Democrat, was pleased by the
president's approach, and Mr. Buchanan, a conservative
Republican, was not, illustrated how the debate could cut
across typical party lines.
The Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle, Democrat of South
Dakota, withheld full judgment on Mr. Bush's proposals. He
said that immigration issues must be addressed, and that he
and Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, would
introduce legislation. "Immigration reform ought to be
comprehensive and bipartisan," Mr. Daschle said.
Immigration issues are important to Mr. Bush politically in
this election year, and important internationally as well.
President Vicente Fox, whom Mr. Bush will meet with in a
few days, has been pushing for a more flexible stance in
Washington. Mr. Bush telephoned his Mexican counterpart in
advance of today's remarks.
"As a Texan, I have known many immigrant families, mainly
from Mexico, and I've seen what they add to our country,"
Mr. Bush said. "They bring to America the values of faith
in God, love of family, hard work and self-reliance, the
values that made us a great nation to begin with."
Mr. Bush asserted that he and Congress could put together
immigration legislation that would help illegal immigrants
without hurting those who are here legally, and that that
would keep United States borders safe as well as welcoming.
What the United States must have, he said, is immigration
laws that work. "Yet today, we do not," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/07/politics/07CND-IMMI.html?ex=1074525931&ei=1&en=372763469abe3c51
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