- Note - If these people succeed in passing Bush's program
and it is signed into law, America is dead. What are YOU going to do about
it?
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- Thanks for your phone calls, emails, and faxes over this
past week against the Bush guestworker amnesty proposal. Your continued
efforts are needed.
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- Reports indicate that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
(R-TN) and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) are planning to help pass
legislation modeled after President Bush's proposal. Calls are coming into
their offices both for and against the Bush proposal. But it's imperative
that WE FLOOD their offices with calls AGAINST this outrageous proposal.
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- Action Needed:
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- Call Majority Leader Frist (202-224-3135), Speaker Hastert
(202-225-0600), and the White House (202-456-1111) immediately to voice
your strong opposition.
- Follow your phone calls up by sending free faxed messages
to Majority Leader Frist and Speaker Hastert through our web site. Click
on the links above and select the "Oppose Bush Guestworker Amnesty
Proposal" message.
- New Information from FAIR on Bush's Proposal:
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- Dan Stein has an urgent audio message on our web site.
Click here to listen to his message.
- We have put together an honest Q & A on the Bush
proposal. (See below.) Please use these points when making your case against
the Bush proposal.
- An Honest Q & A About President Bush's
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- Immigration Proposal
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- President Bush's White House staff asked and answered
questions about the immigration proposal he unveiled on Wednesday at the
White House. FAIR has examined the questions and provides some alternative
answers.
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- Q. Is this amnesty?
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- A. You bet it is. Any program that allows millions of
illegal aliens to receive legal status in this country is an amnesty. The
difference between this amnesty and the one signed by President Reagan
in 1986 is that this one includes an interim guestworker status for people
transitioning from illegal alien status to legal permanent residency. Under
the president's plan, current illegal aliens would be given guestworker
status for up to six years and be eligible for Social Security numbers
and driver's licenses. It is absolutely not credible to believe that under
the circumstances any of these people will ever leave, or that they will
not be granted permanent residence. In addition, because it allows them
to bring family members to join them, amnesty will be extended to countless
millions more.
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- President Bush also promises "enhanced workplace
enforcement again those who violate the immigration laws." The obvious
question is: Why has there been virtually no workplace enforcement over
the past three years of his administration? Why should anyone believe,
after years of empty promises by Republican and Democratic administrations,
that this time they will keep their word? Why doesn't the president begin
"enhanced work place enforcement" today? He does not need any
additional legislation to do that. It is already the law.
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- Q. Will immigrants who participate in this program be
eligible for citizenship?
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- A. Under the 1996 immigration reform legislation (again,
never enforced), people who violated our immigration laws were supposed
to be made ineligible for legal immigration status in the U.S. President
Bush's plan will inevitably lead to citizenship for millions of immigration
cheaters. It's just going to take a little longer.
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- Q. How will you determine that a job cannot be filled
by an American?
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- A. The White House claims that "every reasonable
effort" must be made to find an American worker for a job opening.
However, "every reasonable effort" does not seem to include offering
better wages or other incentives to attract American workers. In fact,
when asked how the plan would establish that no American workers were available
for the job, White House aides said "the fact the job is open will
be assumed to mean that the 'marketplace' had determined that." This
proposal amounts to a death-knell for upward mobility in the U.S. After
employers have made "every reasonable effort" to find an American
worker at a wage they wish to pay, they will be free to offer that job
to anyone anywhere in the world, rather than have to bid for the services
of American workers.
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- Q. What will happen to employers who have been illegal
hiring foreign workers?
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- A. They get a free pass. No one will have to pay the
consequences of having hired people illegally and who also often violated
tax laws and labor laws. Employers will not be held accountable for the
countless billions of dollars their low-wage illegal workers have cost
states and local communities over the years. Why should anyone believe
that the government will start enforcing these laws, and if they have the
capability, why aren't they doing it already?
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- Q. If unemployment rises, will this program be suspended?
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- A. In this instance, the White House gives an honest
answer: NO! If employers cannot induce Americans to work at the wages they
wish to pay, they will be able to seek workers overseas, no matter what
our unemployment rate is. Moreover, since our legal immigration admissions
have been unaffected by economic circumstances in this country, why would
we expect that the condition of American workers would have any bearing
on this area of immigration policy?
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- Q. Would this proposal create a new enforcement burden?
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- A. An enforcement nightmare would be more accurate. The
immigration system has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that it cannot
cope with its existing responsibilities. Now the president would have these
same chaotic immigration agencies investigate ten million or more applications
from illegal aliens seeking to become guestworkers, applications to bring
their families here, and untold millions more applications from prospective
guestworkers overseas. The 1986 amnesty was so mismanaged that, by the
admission of the amnesty's own sponsors, the majority of people who qualified
under certain provisions received legalization fraudulently.
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- Q. How does the federal government maintain credibility
in threatening future law enforcement?
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- A. There has been some additional attention to the border,
but it clearly hasn't stopped the influx of illegal aliens. The problem
has been a lack of interior enforcement and workplace enforcement. So far,
all the White House is offering is lip service on interior and workplace
enforcement. There is nothing in the president's proposal that will prevent
millions more illegal aliens from entering the country in the expectation
that they too will eventually be granted legal status.
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- Q. Will the family members of aliens participating in
the temporary worker program be able to live in the U.S. with the principal
worker?
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- A. The White House states vaguely that the "principal
worker is required to prove that he or she can support family members"
while they're here. What is the definition of support? Who is going to
cover the cost of education for children, and health care for other family
members? What about children who are likely to be born in the U.S. during
the duration of stay here? Because being born on U.S. soil grants them
automatic U.S. citizenship, all of these children will be eligible for
the full range of public benefits, which will be paid by the taxpayers.
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- Q. If the program does not allow the worker to remain
permanently in the United States, what incentive would an undocumented
worker have to come forward?
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- A. All history indicates that "temporary" residency
programs result in permanent U.S. residence. Current illegal aliens know,
as do prospective "guestworkers" outside the country who want
to come here, that once a foothold is established, the system inevitably
yields and no one is ever required to leave. The administration also contends
that guestworker status will give these people bargaining power with employers.
Not so long as employers can simply bring in new guestworkers if the workers
already here are not willing to accept the wages and working conditions
being offered. Not only does the "every reasonable effort" proviso
of the president's plan not protect U.S. citizen workers, it will not protect
established guestworkers while there is a limitless supply of workers outside
the country to be tapped.
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- The president's plan also includes eligibility for Social
Security benefits for people who have worked in this country illegally.
If they come forward, it appears they may be eligible to collect for the
years they worked illegally under false identities and documents. At a
time when one of the critical public policy issues faced by the country
is the solvency of the Social Security system, this proposal will further
burden a program that may not be able to fulfill its promises to U.S. citizens
who have paid into it honestly throughout their lifetimes.
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- Q. Will the government be able to implement such a large-scale
immigration program and enforce the immigration laws?
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- A. In 1986, the American people were promised a well-run,
one-time-only amnesty program for illegal aliens living here at the time.
It was neither well run, nor apparently a one-time offer. The 1986 amnesty
was riddled with fraud and it did nothing to solve the illegal immigration
crisis. In fact, judging by the fact that we have an estimated nine to
eleven million illegal aliens living in the U.S. today, it exacerbated
the problem. The second part of the 1986 immigration act was the promise
of employer sanctions that would punish employers who continued to hire
illegal aliens. Employer sanctions have never been enforced and there is
no reason to believe that the government will be any more serious this
time.
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- More recently, the government has mismanaged the H-1B
guestworker program, which has brought hundreds of thousands of high tech
workers to the U.S. This program has been widely abused, and there is incontrovertible
evidence that thousands of American workers were either passed over for
employment or displaced because of the availability of H-1B workers. The
government's track record of protecting American workers from unfair competition
from foreign guestworkers is so poor that it would be reckless to place
any faith in promises to protect American workers if a far more massive
guestworker program is enacted.
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- Federation for American Immigration Reform
- 1666 Connecticut Avenue NW
- Washington, DC, 20009
- Tel: (202) 328-7004 Fax: (202) 387-3447
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