Bush’s Coming Amnesty Plan
By William F. Jasper
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Source: The New American, January 12, 2004
The
Bush administration’s plan to give amnesty to millions of illegal
aliens would prove to be an even bigger disaster than previous
amnesties. |
Get
ready for a battle royale to save our borders. The Bush administration
and pro-immigration invasion Democrats and Republicans in Congress are
planning a big move this year to give amnesty to millions of illegal
aliens now residing in the United States. President Bush and his
counterpart in Mexico, President Vicente Fox, were forced to put this
scheme on hold in 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Now the
plan is back, along with a multitude of connected initiatives to deluge
the U.S. with waves of legal immigrants, “refugees,” “temporary
workers” and your standard variety of illegal alien border jumpers.
Republicans and conservatives maintained a continuous cannonade against
President Clinton for his blatant disregard of our borders and his
efforts to swell the Democrat Party’s voting ranks by giving
citizenship to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. Continuing
these policies, they warned, would lead to national suicide. Many of
those voices, however, have been strangely mute as President Bush has
continued, and in some cases expanded, Clinton’s suicidal immigration
policies. Some have actually switched from jeering to cheering,
apparently convinced that any policy, no matter how bankrupt,
destructive or unconstitutional, suddenly becomes beneficial when
backed by Republican Party leadership.
The Bush administration sent some important signals on this front in
December. First, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge sent up a flare
at a December 9 town hall-style meeting at Miami Dade College. A Copley
News Service report of the event on December 11 made the following
observation:
In the strongest sign to date that the Bush
administration is considering a major immigration initiative next year,
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has called for “some kind of
legal status” for the estimated 8 million to 12 million immigrants
living illegally in the United States.
Ridge, who oversees the nation’s borders, also said that such an
unprecedented legalization program should be coupled with a decision
about “what our immigration policy is,” followed by a firm commitment
to enforce it.
What does the Bush legalization process mean? “I’m not saying make them
citizens, because they violated the law to get here,” Ridge said at the
Miami event. “You determine how you can legalize their presence. Then,
as a country, you make a decision that from this day forward … this is
the process of entry, and if you violate that process of entry we have
the resources to cope with it.”
Amnesty Disaster Replay
Legalize their presence but never allow them to become citizens? Does
this mean that they would become permanent legal aliens? Mr. Ridge
knows that is an absurd notion; once the millions of illegals are
legalized, the political pressure will build inexorably to grant them
full citizenship.
And what of Secretary Ridge’s talk about getting tough “from this day
forward” — meaning after the legalization? “We’ve heard that one
before,” says Karl Nelson, a retired investigator for the former
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). “Look, that’s what the
immigration ‘reformers’ promised with the 1986 IRCA [Immigration Reform
and Control Act] amnesty,” Nelson told THE NEW AMERICAN. “But what
really happened? Most of INS resources were shifted over to processing
nearly three million aliens for amnesty. Did we get the promised
enforcement increases? No. Did that amnesty satisfy the amnesty
advocates? No. They immediately pushed for widening the amnesty and
granting innumerable exceptions. And the [Reagan-Bush] administration
caved in. Did we get control of our borders as promised? No. As
everyone should know by now, our borders continued to be overrun — and
still are being overrun. Show me one reason why we should trust in the
new promises when the record shows that all similar promises in the
past have been broken.”
The new Bush amnesty would be far worse than previous amnesties, says
Nelson, who served 25 years in the Border Patrol and INS. “The
paperwork alone will be a killer,” he notes. “The IRCA amnesty program
ate up much of the INS budget and tied up an extraordinary percentage
of INS personnel. How will they process several times that number of
applicants? The reality is that tightening budgets together with
personnel overload and political pressure to speed the process will
result in rubberstamping not only millions of current illegal
residents, but millions more who will come to take advantage of the
opportunity. Besides all of the usual economic and social problems this
will cause an incredible security problem. Homeland security? This is
absolutely ludicrous.”
Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), a leading congressional champion of
immigration control, was likewise appalled. “I can think of few things
that could be more dangerous for homeland security than granting
amnesty to 8 to 12 million illegal aliens,” said Rep. Tancredo, in
response to Secretary Ridge’s remarks. “Perhaps the administration
ought to dedicate more energy to enforcing our existing immigration
laws and less on finding ways to allow millions to skirt them.”
White House Spin Cycle
At a December 11 press briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan
was asked if Secretary Ridge’s statements were signaling a new amnesty
policy. Mr. McClellan said “no,” but acknowledged “there are some that
had interpreted this as some broad amnesty discussion, and that’s not
at all that he was suggesting.” However, McClellan then failed to offer
anything that would dispel the alleged misinterpretation. In a muddled
and evasive explanation, he stated that Ridge has been “looking at the
issue of the large number of illegal immigrants we do have in the
country, and looking at those that could be threats and those that are
here for other reasons. And so he’s just talking about the realities
that we are facing now.”
A few days later, at a December 15 press conference, President Bush
told reporters that he “is firmly against blanket amnesty.” This is
more of the Clintonian rhetorical slithering we’ve come to expect on
this issue. Note the president didn’t say “no amnesty,” just no
“blanket amnesty.” Bush’s upcoming selective amnesty (or amnesties) is
apparently intended to look conservative compared to one that
unreservedly proclaims amnesty for all illegal aliens regardless of
nationality or circumstances.
At the same press conference, President Bush made another important
statement. He declared: “I have constantly said that we need to have an
immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any
willing employee.” The president has indeed repeatedly expressed this
policy position and done everything possible to implement it. What is
extraordinary is that this radical position has gone largely unexamined
and uncontested by conservative and liberal-left politicos and
commentators alike. There are literally hundreds of millions of
“willing employees” throughout the world who would gladly come here to
work for a fraction of what American employees are paid. If President
Bush’s immigration policy is being framed, as he himself has repeatedly
said, to “match any willing employer with any willing employee,” then
we are in for a continuous immigration deluge — and a huge rise in
layoffs of American citizens, as their jobs are taken by willing
foreign employees.
Amnesty by Any Other Name
Back in September 2001, THE NEW AMERICAN observed regarding the
Bush-Fox amnesty threat: “The Bush administration has been torturing
the English language in an effort to craft a new amnesty for millions
of illegal aliens without saying the dread word: ‘amnesty.’ Some newly
devised euphemisms include ‘regularization,’ ‘legalization,’ ‘permanent
status,’ and ‘earned adjustment.’ President Bush has repeatedly dodged
the amnesty issue, refusing to use the term. Still, when recently
pressed on the issue, he insisted that his soon-to-be-revealed
immigration policy vis-à-vis Mexico will not include a ‘blanket
amnesty.’”
We noted that “whatever Clintonesque term is finally adopted as the
cover for the Bush policy, a large amnesty is certain to be the central
component of his immigration package.” And it is coming, regardless of
the intentionally conflicting signals being sent by the White House. As
the Copley News Service reported on December 11, 2003, “the
administration is considering a major election-year immigration
initiative.” The report continued:
In September, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said he had
received White House assurances that if a bill he drafted to legalize
between 500,000 and 800,000 farm workers reached the president’s desk,
Bush would sign it....
And this week, Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said in an interview that Karl
Rove, Bush’s chief political strategist, promised a presidential push
to deliver on immigration reforms sought by Mexican President Vicente
Fox and advocates for undocumented workers.
The Rove-Bush strategy aims at keeping the Republican core distracted
with other matters until the administration has put together a
sufficiently impressive coalition of business leaders and radical
Hispanic militants as to appear unstoppable. The Bush White House then
intends to ram its amnesty plan through Congress before opponents can
rally to stop it.
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