About Bush's Immigration Speech
By Vincent Fiore (05/19/06)
Let’s cut to the chase here, folks. The speech given by President Bush on Monday night on immigration was the equivalent of getting poked in the eye. At least, that’s the way most hard-core conservatives feel, and none too few Democrats and moderates.
But is what Bush proposed Monday night so pro-illegal immigration as to send rock-ribbed conservatives off the reservation? Don’t be too sure.
We have seen this type of reaction before, where conservatives and Republicans suddenly become “one-issue warriors,” as in “He (Bush) better appoint Bork-like jurists to the Supreme Court, or the Bush presidency is a complete and utter failure.”
If not the issue of judges, then tax policy, government expansion, or military policy. Just name it, and you will find a near-segregated constituency that will cry that the Republican Party has died because Bush has decided to call for only 6,000 new border guards instead of 36,000, as some have stated.
If anything, what Bush stated in his immigration speech was a policy outline, not a set-in-stone directive. We have all seen how deft this president is when asking for one thing, getting another, and declaring victory.
It is the Senate that now calls the tune regarding immigration reform, and if you know the Senate, you know that border security has been of secondary importance when compared to a guest-worker program, or as I call it, “amnesty-lite.”
One must look to the House of Representatives for any security measures along the border. It is in the House that most Americans turn to who believe that illegal immigration is the number-one problem that faces America today.
But, in brief, let’s look at the president’s proposal:
Bush has called for 6,000 new border security guards, which will more than double the total amount of border guards since Bush took office. The National Guard was never going to sit on the border with guns at the ready, so get over it. As border enforcement agents are trained, Guard forces are to be whittled down. By the end of 2008, 18,500 border guards will police the borders.
(www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060516/a_guard_help16.art.htm?POE=click-refer)
Bush then called for a virtual--and real--security fence, or cordon, set up along the Southern border. Says Bush: “We will construct high-tech fences in urban corridors, and build new patrol roads and barriers in rural areas. We'll employ motion sensors, infrared cameras, and unmanned aerial vehicles to prevent illegal crossings.”
The third spoke in the Bush security wheel is holding employers accountable for hiring illegals. Bush believes that the “key part of that system should be a new identification card for every legal foreign worker. This card should use biometric technology, such as digital fingerprints, to make it tamper-proof. A tamper-proof card would help us enforce the law, and leave employers with no excuse for violating it.”
Fourth, the president wants to put an end to the “catch and release” program, work with governors and fund states more generously to help the federal government fight illegal immigration, clear away bureaucratic underbrush when deporting non-Mexicans back to their countries of origin, and build more holding facilities and provide more bed space in order to hold more illegals for deportation.
(www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060515-10.html)
All of the above are considered positives, or so one would think. Yet, many on the right have dismissed these proposals out of hand. Why? Because the other aspects of the president’s plan, like the temporary or guest-worker part of it and the refusal of Bush to even entertain the idea of removing some of the 12 million illegals in the country have seriously poisoned the well regarding any immigration reform outside of security measures only.
Even the president’s acknowledgment of America being a “melting pot” bought side-long glances and derisive laughter from most. It’s what happens when you realize that a government agency, like the DMV, has its driving test in a dozen different languages, thereby highlighting the root cause of immigration resentment: assimilation.
Bush has stated that illegal immigrants that are here already “should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it.” Yet, in the end, that is what they will get: citizenship via lawbreaking. But the prospect of deporting millions cannot be accomplished without actual rioting and general mayhem. Could you picture Los Angeles if mass deportation was implemented? There is not only compassion in what Bush proposes, but a large and pragmatic dose of reality.
Sure. It isn’t enough, but it’s a damn site better than before, is it not? I did not see this kind of effort from any other recent administration, including that of President Reagan’s, who granted out-and-out amnesty to some three million-plus illegals in 1986.
Which brings me to say that the problem of illegal immigration did not start on January 20, 2001, the day president-elect Bush was indeed sworn in as President Bush. Also, there is not one single idea for immigration reform to be heard from by anyone on the left. I do not see anything except scorn and finger-pointing from the Democratic Party as a whole. Truly, it is a pathetic non-statement from a party that casts itself as the party of “inclusiveness.”
Conservatives and Republicans would do well to remember that a president’s term is made up of numerous victories and loses. Like terrorism and Social Security, illegal immigration was a problem of crises proportions left over from the previous administration which primarily dealt with politically low-risk issues.
If these proposals were actually implemented and built upon, then there is every reason to believe that illegal immigration can be vastly reduced, and finally controlled.
It is a good start where there was none before.
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