This seems collosally stupid to me. It’s unclear that it’s politically motivated (per the article) because it seems like it will tick off more people than it will please. Perhaps the calcualtion is that the “ticked-off” people are safe votes and won’t be an issue.
How many times are we going to go thru this amnesty procedure? This makes our standard immigration procedures a joke. The only “justification” I could see is if we’re ready to just throw up our hands and say: “Hey, we can’t stop illegal immigration, so we might as well try to pull them into the system.” I’m not at that point yet.
I think it would please some employers. From what I understand, it could give them a great deal of power over some workers. It may also be an attempt for the Florida vote.
I think it sounds like an okay idea. I’d rather have employed citizens than illegals sucking away at our social programs. Not that they all do that, BTW.
LA:
Why do you think this won’t lead to an even bigger wave of illegal immigration in the future? We seem to be going for “amnesty” (or somthing very close to it) every 20 years or so. Seems like a big inducement to igmore the rules and just sneak in with the idea that you’ll get citizenship eventually.
Politically, it seems like Bush should just write a campaign check to Pat Buchanan and get it over with. Maybe he feels he needs to get Pat on the ballot in Florida again so the geniuses there can vote for him (instead of the Dem) again.
It will put enormous downward pressure on wages. Bush’s statement that will “match any willing employer with any willing employee” belies the fact that the “willingness” of any employee is directly related to wages, not the relative desirability of a given job. If we suddenly allowed millions of poor Pakistanis into the country, all the new Mexican workers would be thrown out of work, because even they won’t work for 28¢ a hour.
I would be happy to debate the new immigration policy, if I could assure myself that I had any idea what the hell these people are talking about! Josh Marshall, of the much esteemed Talking Points Memohttp://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ has a very, very long excerpt of two Admin types “explaining” the new policy, and I defy you to make sense of it!
Aside from being an obvious political move, I just don’t see a whole lot of upsides to this:
[ul]
[li]Employers who hire low-income workers would like it, as it gets them out of trouble for hiring illegals (see the recent Wal-Mart custodian outsourcing case for an example).[/li][li]Low-income Americans wouldn’t like it, as it would provide more competition for the scarce number of jobs already on the market, along with the downward pressure on wages.[/li][li]Die-hard conservatives won’t like it, as it would “legitimize” illegal immigration. This is probably a minor factor, though, since the folks pissed off by this move aren’t going to vote Democrat over the issue anyway – they’ll just grumble, but nothing more.[/li][li]This increases incentives for illegal immigration to the US, which pisses off just about everyone.[/li][li]Didn’t Grey Davis get dinged on similar grounds, when he proposed allowing illegal immigrants to get drivers’ licenses?[/li][/ul]
Aside from appealing to the Hispanic vote(*) and pleasing employers who hire low-income employees, I don’t see the benefits. But then, I haven’t gotten the daily talking points from Fox News yet, and I’m so sure they’ll spin this in the best possible light…
(* = And isn’t it rather insulting for Hispanic voters to see such blatant manipulation? “Oh, look, Uncle Jose can become a legal resident under amnesty now, let’s vote for George!” Or is it just me?)
Sure elucidator: [sup](may I call you lucy?)[/sup]
Like fark members say: “It’s a trap!!”
It is true, after a period, that immigrants then could qualify for green cards, but if there is no extension, a Mexican who registers with the program will have to leave the country and then wait for the card. Not a good prospect for a breadwinner.
If there are extensions, then it is silly for the WH to pretend this program is not related to giving residence.
Here, in a nutshell, is the main reason why to vote this president out of office: his raw political and personal ambitions take control over national policy (see Iraq also). On the whole I do agree that some amnesty is needed, but this program (not an amnesty, not a residence tool as the WH says) is so timid and I suspect it has so many poison pills that I do agree with what Josh Marshall said:
“How many people actually think the president expects to or even wants this ‘policy’ to pass?”
The people who are working in the US and are keeping themselves out of trouble, deserve better. And to not have legal friends or relatives be pandered with promises that have a great chance to never be realized.
Yes, rjung: as a Hispanic-American, I have to say it is insulting.
Always look for motives, especially in an election year. Gotta wonder how much he’s getting in contributions from the restaurant and hotel industries, which would certainly prefer not to have to deal with La Migra raids looking for their dishwashers’ and maids’ papers. The Florida orange industry too, for that matter. It may be that the people Rove knows will be pissed off weren’t going to vote for Bush, or perhaps anyone, anyway. There’s supposed to be an employer certification that they can’t find Americans willing to do the work before they hire gastarbeiteren, but is that going to be taken seriously?
Yes, this will backfire, as soon as Dean or whoever makes the point that this administration has lost jobs for Americans already, and is now looking to give some of the ones remaining to foreigners. It also undermines the “He’s made our borders tighter and safer from terrorist infiltration” rhetoric that he and the loyalists use.
Is there anything these people do believe in other than getting and keeping power?
It also gives enormous power to employers over immigrant employees. If they give them any problems, like not working enough overtime, or asking for a raise, they can be deported.
No minimum wage job will ever move above that level, and many will fall. The laws of supply and demand in the job market have just been thrown in to the toilet, as employers can simply offer any job at minimum wage, and if Americans don’t take it, they have the whole world from which to recruit meek workers willing to do anything to come here, and give up any rights to stay here.
It would be a lot different if the people in question were coming into this country to BECOME AMERICANS. As it is, more and more immigrants, whether legal or not, are setting up little versions of whatever country they came from, with no intention of being part of the mainstream culture. I, for one, am tired of dealing with people who can’t speak english, and have no intention of learning it. Not to mention those who give me dirty looks when I walk by–in my own country!
I see Bush’s move as a way to get more votes in '04, nothing less.
Your smiley may let you back out of this, but I’ll bet you Fox does not put a positive spin on this. How about it? Let’s use tonight’s O’Reilly Factor as the judge. If he puts a positive spin on it, I’ll open a thread tomorrow that Fox News is hopelessly biased. If he puts a negative spin on it, you’ll open a thread tomorrow saying Fox is not biased, and that you’ve been wrong all along.
You’re kidding, right? Employers will have more power over the workers than they do now? Your secenario discribes the current situation, not what things will be like under this plan.
To me it suggests more as gesture than legislation.
I think he’s sending a signal to employers that, while all of this is sorted out, things will go along as they have, nothing to see here, move along. You can pretty much relax, no major effort to enforce the requirement of employers to guarantee the status of thier workers is in the works. You may continue to hire them for jobs no American would take for the wages you offer, without looking over your shoulder for la migra.
Further, it broadly hints to those employers that things will get even better, that you will be able to contract your labor to a specific serf, er, undocumented worker, and if that person shall displease you…adios, muchacho!
It also holds out hope to the Hispanic-Americans who are citizens or documented residents and have relatives/friends/spouses living in the shadow-world that they will be able to live in America as well. Would they vote for a man who offered such? I sure would.
And when they draw flack from the nativist, anti-immigrant portion of the Right, they will explain that its a work in progress, nothing decided yet, besides, its just temporary, you understand.
Thus they can offer easier citizenship to the constituency that desires it, while denying doing so to the constituency that doesn’t. All that need by done is to drag out the process of actual legislation. Very serious business. Musn’t rush into anything. Could take a while.
Let’s discuss this. I seem to see that you’re against the amnesty program as rewarding illegal immigration. Is that right (in a nutshell…I realize your position is almost certainly more complex)?
But if there is NO amnesty AND no money to bring on board enough border patrol agents AND enough INS agents AND enough judges/lawyers/etc to handle the caseload that actual enforcement of immigration laws would require then what option is there?
These folks are coming to the US at (sometimes) great personal risk. That they’re willing to make the trip at all indicates that the incentive to get here is very strong so it’s not like they’re going to stop or we’ll be able to prevent them from getting here and finding work.
If that’s the case isn’t some form of amnesty program merely attempting to apply a rational solution to a problem insoluble by current policy?
Or if not, given the restrictions I’ve outlined above how would you set about dealing with this problem? Me? I’ve no idea that would be effective.
This is actually one of the few legitimate functions of a gov’t-- to protect the borders. If it were me, I’d shut down the Dept of Education and use that money.
Yes, you need to address the problem at the cause. Enforcement is only one aspect, but you can make the consequences of being caught greater. All things being equal, there should be as much economic pressure for the jobs to chase the workers (into their own country) as there is for the workers to chase the jobs. I’m not certain of the details, but I suspect there are things we are doing to keep at least the agriculture jobs in the US. It would also seem that we should be able to better track illegal workers thru better data collection on analysis of SS numbers and spot checks on employers if necessary.
But I’ll be candid and say I don’t fully understand the scope of the problem and what all the causes are. My gut tells me that we have not tried very hard to deal with the problem, and that this is a cop-out.
It’s really fairly simple to crack down on illegal immigration. Just stat nailing the companies hiring them. And I mean nailing them. Fine them, arrest the CEOs, seize their assets as proceeds of a criminal enterprise. If businesses are no longer looking at massive profits from sub-minimum wages coupled with no real enforcement and minimal sentencing when enforced, there will be no jobs for illegals. They aren’t going to come here if they can’t find work.
What I don’t get is why the so called Hispanic advocacy groups (the ones that are supposedly important but no one I know has ever heard of in real life) push this so hard unless they believe that sheer numbers lead to more power. What makes groups important in society is their educational level, income, and political participation, not rank in the census. All this guest worker business does is it institutionalizes the permanent non-citizen underclass (like the gastarbeiter in Germany). How long is it before we have Soweto style townships ringing Los Angeles?
I am Hispanic and live in a town that is 80% Hispanic. We already have high unemployment and low wages for the people that are born here. How does this make things better for the average working class Hispanic here? It doesn’t hurt me so much because I have a college degree, but it hurts many American citizen Hispanics in this area. They are the ones who compete (along with blacks and poor whites) for jobs in construction, meat packing, warehousing, trucking and other once decent paying jobs that people without a university education could depend on for steady and adequate work.
Frankly there are certain jobs that only migrant workers from foreign countries will really fill (farm work, janitorial). But increasingly other service jobs have depressed wages due to illegal hiring of immigrants.
By the way, George W. Bush did have these plans in place in 2001, but September 11th delayed them until now. I think electoral politics is only one angle, at most a side benefit in Bush’s view. The republican party quite simply has a conflict between the interests of business owners and the feeling of rank and file working class conservatives. I also do think Bush has some genuine empathy, or at least, wishes to be compassionate in this area. But it’s just wrong to legitimize illegal entry in any way. Instead, the bureaucracy for legal immigrants should be reduced.
