Last nigth President Bush presented his 5-point plan to deal with illegal immigration (full text of the speech). His five points are:
- Secure the borders
- Temporary worker program
- Hold employers accountable for hiring illegals
- Path to citizenship for those already here
- Assimiliate those who are here, and those who are coming
My general impression is that I liked the content of the speech. I agree with most of what he spelled out, and would love to see it put into action. My concern is seeing how much of it is actually ever acted on or enforced once it is enacted.
Let’s tackle each point one at a time:
(1) — Secure the Borders
President Bush’s “Secure the Border” plan includes the following components:
- Increase Border Patrol officers by 6,000
- Build a fence
- Use motion sensors, infrared cameras, and unmanned aerial vehicles to prevent illegal crossings
- Deploy 6,000 Guard members to the Mexican border
- Expanded the number of beds in our detention facilities
On the surface, I like all of these points — the National Guard deployment provides an immediate fix to slowing down the wave of new illegals crossing into this country. Meanwhile hte other components should all contribute to a more succesful and permanent long-term solution.
My concern though, is that most of this will not happen. We’ll talk about building a fence, and then balk when it comes time to finance it and actually build it. We’ll add more Border Patrol Agents, but then we’ll continue to handcuff them in their ability to do their jobs.
Recent headlines have read “Mexico Worried About Soldiers on the Border” — well, good. They should be worried.
(2) — Temporary worker program
The President wants to create a legal path for foreign workers to enter our country in “an orderly way, for a limited period of time”.
The problem though, is what happens when that temporary period runs out? The President thinks these temporary workers will simply return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay.
I don’t believe that to be true. I think most will just stay anyway, as they’ve always done in the past. We’ll end up spending millions to track down “temporary” workers who have decided to become permanent illegals.
(3) — Hold employers accountable for hiring illegals
We already have laws in place to hold employers accountable for hiring illegals. THe problem is that they are not enforced, or are not easily enforced (due to the availability of forged identification documents).
A key part of this part of the plan includes a new identification card for every legal foreign worker.
I’d rather we just nix #2, and then #3 becomes irrelevant.
(4) — Path to citizenship for those already here
President Bush wants to create path to citizenship that inlcudes: pay a meaningful penalty for breaking the law, pay their taxes, learn English, and work in a job for a number of years.
I’m in favor of this. I have known quite a few illegal immigrants to this country. And they have all been extremely hard working, honest, and good people. They can be a valuable asset to your country. But I don’t think we just grant them amnesty for being able to break the law for long enough without getting caught.
(5) — Assimilation
Probably the single best part of President Bush’s speech was this:
Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language.
I’m just not sure how you enforce assimilation.
I think this fifth point was more a statement meant to address the recent immigration reform protests, and also serve as a warning to future participants in the guest worker program or those seeking a legal path to citizenship that they will be expected to assimilate.
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All in all, I liked the content of the speech. I’ll hold in reserve final opinion of it though until I see (or don’t see) it actually put into action.
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OTHERS:
- Michelle Malkin thinks the President gave us “empty platitude after platitude”.
- John at PowerLine thinks that President Bush tried too hard to find a happy middle ground, and failed: “…sometimes, there isn’t a viable middle ground. This is one of those instances.”
- Hugh Hewitt thinks it’s a “very good start — finally”. But backtracks when he adds:
Memo to Tony Snow: The blogosphere/talk radio callers/e-mailers are turning against this speech in a decisive fashion. They simply do not believe the Administration is really committed to border enforcement, and the spokespeople sent out to back up the president’s message aren’t doing that job. Period.
I don’t think the President is that serious about border enforcement either. But I believe he’s feeling the political pressure to start taking it seriously despite how he really feels.
I agree on several points.
I support Bush’s support of a path to citizenship and assimilation (duh).
I oppose the guest worker program unless it can be shown not to be exploitative and creating a non-assimilating underclass.
Points 1 and 3 are B.S. He could have been doing these things for 5 years!!! Congress and the President have repeatedly underfunded sufficient numbers of border patrols and detention centers. (I understand that tax cuts for billionaires are important but maybe you want to leave a little money in the budget to protect our borders, no?)
Similarly, Clinton-era levels of document enforcement plummeted despite the attacks of September 11.
Left by Preston on May 16th, 2006 at 11:12 am