Immigration changes

what is the policy?

I think his proposal is very well done. He suggests letting non-citizens into the country to work, temporarily. But if they want to enter the country, they must provide fingerprints and have a photo taken. They can stay here and work for a few months, but then they have to go back home.

If they don't go back home, we have their fingerprints and picture, so we can go find them and send them back. There will be no "racial profiling" or inefficient searching. We will know who they are and where they live.

No one seems to recognize that the fingerprint/picture requirement identifies the person much better than the current system. It looks like everyone is missing the point. And I think that's a good thing.

I agree nearly completely with this policy (I can't belive it either)

But I will drop my anti-Bush attitude to bravo him for this instance. In fact, I know several people who are taking advantage of this oppurtunity.

I am totally opposed to the "guest worker" proposal. It sends the message that obeying the law is not important, that we will reward you for cutting in line, and it punishes people who have been waiting patiently in their countries to enter the U.S. legally. Support for this proposal shows a "wink, wink" attitude concerning respect for law, the same attitude displayed by criminals.

Bush is using double-speak in calling this a "guest worker" program. It really is nothing short of amnesty. After 3 years, you can apply for citizenship even though you were initially here illegally. That is amnesty. Plus, guest workers can bring family, and many will have children here who are automatically citizens, in effect making the family's stay here a permanent one. It throws a bone to big business since they will continue to have an endless supply of cheap labor which drives down wages and displaces some low-income workers born in the U.S. The majority of Americans are against amnesty, so Bush is getting around this and preserving big business support by dressing this up as a guest worker program.

How can you say that a program designed to allow legal access send the message that law is not important?

No, this is very different from amnesty. It's a way to keep them out just as much as a way to get them in legally.

This proposal is primarily about what to do with the 8 to 12 million illegals in the country now. If you pass legislation which says that they now get to become legal guest workers, you are rewarding lawbreakers instead of punishing them, and rewarding lawbreakers shows disrespect for the law.

Forgiving the 8-12 million for laws the have already broken is amnesty--amnesty means forgiving people for laws they have broken.

As for future immigrants, why shouldn't we continue to see illegal immigration? Prospective immigrants will say to themselves, why bother going through the legal channels of working in the U.S.--legal channels are always bureacratic and a pain in the ass. If I enter illegally, the U.S. has shown that it will not punish me and will just come up with another way to make my residence there legal. As long as there are no disincentives against coming here illegally, people will continue to do it in the hundreds of thousands each year.