Illegal immigrants already in the United States can only apply for the temporary worker program if they already have a job. The special status would last for three years and could be renewed once, for a total stay of six years. If temporary workers failed to stay employed or broke the law, they would be sent home, Bush said.
Interestingly, both conservatives and liberals are pouncing on this. Conservatives are saying this goes against the core conservative values by awarding those who break the law. The liberals say the program does not go far enough.
Rumors suggest that Bush’s plan is not crafted by INS, Justice Department, DHS or Bush’s Immigration advisors, but rather by Karl Rove, which basically suggests this is just a ploy to gain Mexican votes for 2004. Although its unlikely that the Congress will act on this this year, so this may just remain an election issue.
Although, Gray Davis will testify that near-sighted and ill-conceived measures to bless illegal aliens in order to please them and get the votes of their counterparts, can backfire rather badly.
That's just according to plan.. the 'cheap labor' Republicons are at it again .. they'll say they're against illegal immigration and big government and for fiscal responsibility but act like total hypocrites.
This is a very rational act. Too much time and effort is spent defending our southern border from friendly Mexicans. Better to legitimize the reality of the situation than fight prohibition. The US still represents the land of opportunity to a great deal of the world.....
But Ohioguy, there are no plans to ease the border restrictions. Are there? So, US will still be spending the same, if not more (due to terrorism threats) on border security, even on Mexican Border. As far as I understant, this "reform" is only a "middle ground" for those who are already here. But this seems more like a half-hearted attempt to appease both the left and the right at the same time, and as a natural consequence, really no one is entirely happy. But then, Bush's core conservatives will be really unhappy.
The jackass Michael Savage, whom I had the misfortune to listen to on my way back this evening, was really fuming and is predicting this act alone will make conservatives not to vote for Bush in November. I tend to discount Savage's hatemongering almost 100% but I do hope he is partially right on this vote, although for all the different reasons. At this point, there is about a 10% delta between Bush and Dean... I don't think this thing will swing that many votes away from Bush. But it will be interesting in the days and weeks to come.
^ yah but this move will obviously please the Latinos who are eligible to vote for him this year. When he was a governor of Texas he was supported by almost half of the Texas' Latino voteres in his 1998 reelection campaign.
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*Originally posted by 5Abi: *
^ yah but this move will obviously please the Latinos who are eligible to vote for him this year. When he was a governor of Texas he was supported by almost half of the Texas' Latino voteres in his 1998 reelection campaign.
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Quite possible.
Then again their is the possibility it may backfire. Remember in California, during the recall, Davis signed a bill which gave drivers' licenses to "undocumented immigrants". The idea was this will make Davis popular among the latino voters, cz he is giving their pals drivers' licenses. As the election results showed, Latinos voted less for Davis. One thought was that the voter Latinos actually felt offended that they spend all the time to get in here by legal ways and Davis has awarded those who took the easy route and just broke the law. Dunno how true this is, but if that is a factor, then this thing can also backfire. Although there is a vast vast difference between Davis' spin masters and Bush's. But in Davis case, this is something which the democrats support. In Bush's case, core right-wingers oppose such schemes for illegals. So the dynamics are very interesting.
This proposal is so incoherent I can't really say much on it right now. There are no details.. and there probably won't ever be. It's a friggin cloud, they let you see what you want in it.
If you ask me, the idea at its foundation is just stupid. Yeah, there's a problem needing a solution. This aint it. Thing is, any proposal as complex as is needed for this problem wouldn't get very far. It'd require more than a 5 minute attention span.
This is a carrot for Fox who was quite close to Bush during Bush's years as governor. They both recognized that illegal immigration was a fact of life, but knew that free flow was a bad idea for both parties. The first step is to try to structure and account for the immigrants. The second is to normalize and build a progression to citienship. Let's face it, Mexican workers play a valuable role in the economy, and Hispanic citizens are a huge voting block.
With that said, Mexico remains a nightmare. With Nafta it was thought that Mexico would compete with China for manufacturing jobs. But the Mexican education system, as well as the culture just chooses not to compete with other emerging countries. The political system is still corrupt and stagnant. That leaves oil. Mexico still has large unutilized known reserves, and large potentially explorable areas. This is indeed the only thing that keeps the Mexican economy afloat. Throwing Fox a corrot, and showing some movement will help open other doors.