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 News from Around the Americas | January 2005 
Bush Immigration Plan Meets GOP Opposition
President Bush's plan to liberalize the nation's immigration laws to allow millions of undocumented workers the opportunity for legal status appears to be on a collision course with newly aroused sentiment among House Republicans pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigration.
 President Bush's plan to liberalize the nation's immigration laws to allow millions of undocumented workers the opportunity for legal status appears to be on a collision course with newly aroused sentiment among House Republicans pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigration.
Bush describes his immigration proposal as one of the top goals of his second term, calling it a humane way to get a handle on the nation's mushrooming illegal immigration problem. Republican strategists, led by White House chief political adviser Karl Rove, also see the proposal as an important element in their plan to expand the party's base among the nation's fast-growing Hispanic population.
The key prong in Bush's plan is a temporary-worker program that would offer the nation's estimated 10 million illegal immigrants a chance to earn legal status that would allow them to stay in the country as long as six years. Once they register as temporary workers, they would be eligible to begin the long process of applying for citizenship or permanent residency.
"It's a compassionate way to treat people who come to our country. It recognizes the reality of the world in which we live," Bush said during a news conference last week. "There are some people - there are some jobs in America that Americans won't do and others are willing to do."
But an increasingly vocal group of House Republicans is threatening to undercut Bush's vision, which the president has discussed with passion but has not formally advanced since taking office in 2001. Many House Republicans oppose any effort to grant legal status to undocumented workers, saying it would have the effect of rewarding law-breakers. Instead, they are seeking to ratchet up enforcement efforts against undocumented workers, an approach with proven voter appeal if unproven results when it comes to slowing illegal immigration.
When the new Congress commences this month, key House Republicans are promising to push legislation to complete a controversial fence along the Mexican border near San Diego, to make it tougher for immigrants to attain asylum and to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving driver's licenses. At the insistence of Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) - and with the White House's approval - Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has promised to attach those measures "to the first must-pass legislation" that moves in the House.
Last month, House Republicans wrested a pledge from Bush to cooperate in enacting tougher immigration provisions by blocking legislation to restructure the nation's intelligence community. The intelligence bill passed only after Bush promised to "work with" House Republicans to enact those measures.
Bush's concession meant that Congress will begin the year on an anti-immigration note, which promises to continue as many of those pushing for the tough enforcement measures also are likely to oppose the president's "guest worker" plan.
"I'm no longer the only person in the caucus bringing the issue of illegal immigration to the American people," said Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), who heads the House's 71-member Immigration Reform Caucus, which has a section on its Web site listing crimes, health problems and other problems it says are caused by illegal immigrants. "Now others appear to be willing to go to the mat on it."
How the White House plans to reconcile its stated desire for a temporary-worker program with its pledge to toughen immigration laws is unclear, although some supporters of Bush's plan say the two goals are not incompatible. Backers of a guest-worker plan argue that there is no way to effectively crack down on undocumented workers, given the ineffectiveness of the nation's immigration laws. The new program, they said, would create incentives for people to enter the country legally.
Efforts to hold employers accountable for hiring illegal immigrants have been largely frustrated by a booming industry in forged documents. Attempts to stem the tide by building a fence and beefing up patrols along the southwestern border have only shifted much of the flow of illegal immigrants east from California, often to the rugged Arizona desert. Hundreds of would-be illegal immigrants have died attempting to make the perilous journey across the southwestern border, even as an estimated 1 million illegal immigrants make it into the country each year.
Many supporters say a temporary-worker program would enhance national security by identifying who is in the country; by boosting the economy with a continuing supply of highly motivated, low-skill workers; and by helping undocumented workers avoid exploitation by granting them the protections that come with legal status. The workers, meanwhile, would be free to return to their home countries, allowing them to stay connected with their families.
"The idea is to make the system respond to the fact that we have an integrated labor market that interacts with Mexico and Central America," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrants' rights group. "You are trying to transform it from a black market, chaotic, hard-to-control flow to a more orderly, regulated flow."
Still, tougher enforcement provisions are popular among voters, particularly in areas where residents feel overwhelmed by illegal immigrants. "If the White House and the Republican establishment think promoting amnesty is good politics, they are crazy," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which opposes a guest-worker program. "It has the real potential of turning off their base."
In November, Arizona voters approved a ballot initiative requiring proof of citizenship or legal residency for people to access a wide array of government services. The measure passed despite the opposition of some of the state's most powerful elected officials.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who opposed the ballot initiative, has argued that enforcement measures alone will not solve the illegal immigration problem. "If anyone believes that simply strengthening our borders is the answer to our nation's illegal immigration problem, they don't understand the problem," he said as the Senate passed the intelligence bill last month. "Where there's a demand, there's going to be a supply."
Bush, who often points out that he was confronted with the complicated politics surrounding illegal immigration when he was governor of Texas, outlined plans for a temporary-worker program in the early days of his presidency, but they were shelved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The president again outlined his principles for immigration 11 months ago, but the issue rarely surfaced during the campaign. The White House has put it back on the table since Bush's reelection, in which some exit polls found Bush winning more than 40 percent of the Hispanic vote.
"I fully understand the politics of immigration reform. I was the governor of Texas, right there on the front lines of border politics," Bush said. "I know what it means to have mothers and fathers come to my state and across the border of my state to work. Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River, is what I used to tell the people of my state."
McCain, who is planning his own immigration legislation that would couple a guest-worker program and a sharp increase in the number of permanent resident slots available to unskilled workers with tougher enforcement provisions, met with Bush on the subject in the days after the election. Such a measure would likely be successful only with bipartisan support.
Some advocacy groups who champion comprehensive immigration changes are less concerned about the sentiment among House Republicans than they are about Bush's commitment to the issue. Although Bush talks movingly about the subject, they say, he has yet to expend any political capital to push his proposal.
"It's not the House Republicans that so far has not been coming through on immigration reform," said Ana Avendano, associate general counsel and director of the Immigrant Worker Program for the AFL-CIO. "It's been the White House." |
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