Bush puts immigration reform back on agenda

[question everything]

Bush puts immigration reform back on agenda

President's party may lead opposition

By Jerry Kammer
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

January 31, 2005


(snip)

Nevertheless, Bush has set the stage for what could be the most intense national discussion about immigration since Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

(snip)

Today, the number of people living and working illegally in the United States is estimated at nearly 12 million – more than twice what it was in 1986. And the population is growing.

Bush wants Congress to take a different approach. His plan avoids an amnesty, instead providing temporary legal status to foreign workers. The workers would have to leave the country when their visas expired. In the meantime, their families could join them in the United States, possibly sinking roots in the community, which might complicate their departure later.

(snip)

Forces on both sides of the issue are trying to gauge whether Bush's call for a massive guest-worker program is mostly lip service designed to win favor from business groups and Hispanic voters or if he intends to spend his political capital pushing the initiative.

More..

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050131/news_1n31immig.html

[EVDebs]

1. Immigration reforms only work when LivingWage laws are simultaneously

enacted. You can't deport the millions of illegal immigrants and legal visaholders...all of whom are at the mercy of 'globalization' interests who only wanted them here in the first place so as to exploit them as cheap labor. So, if 'amnesty' or whatever program to citizenship IS enacted, the end result must be a LIVING WAGE for all citizens.

Once native-born and immigrant labor are on an equal playing field, with LivingWages being paid across the board, this country can begin to pay for the hidden costs of globalization passed onto the taxpayers

"Mass Immigration Cost American Taxpayers $69 Billion Net and 2 Million Jobs in 1997
Study by Dr. Donald Huddle Reports Legal Immigration of over 1 Million Per Year Accounts for over 62% of Costs"
http://www.carryingcapacity.org/huddlenr.html

and most new labor force growth is by immigrants being hired
"NEW REPORT REVEALS NATION'S GROWING DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN IMMIGRANTS SINCE 2000"
http://www.nupr.neu.edu/7-04/immigration_july04.shtml

[Rose Siding]

2. Woowoo, Powell and Ashcroft had a little tiff!

snip>
As they assembled their staffs before a session with the Mexican team, Ashcroft criticized Powell's proposal to put many of the illegal immigrants on a path toward a green card. That driver's license-sized document, one of the most coveted and counterfeited in the world, grants permanent resident status and puts immigrants on a path toward citizenship.

"Oh, Colin, don't talk about green cards," Ashcroft said, according to a member of the U.S. team who asked not to be identified.

Powell slammed the table with his fist and talked of his parents' 1920s immigration from Jamaica.

"That's what my parents did!" he said.
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This other piece quotes McCain- He's working with Kennedy on this:

"We can't secure the road from the airport to Baghdad in Iraq," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "How the hell are we going to control our border - hundreds of miles between the United States and Mexico?"

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10780928.htm