As you may know, the Senate is voting today on George Bush’s amnesty-for-illegal-aliens scheme. The so-called AgJobs bill will, among other things, direct “the Secretary of Homeland Security to grant qualifying alien agricultural workers (and their spouses and minor children) temporary resident status and subsequently lawful permanent resident status upon the fulfillment of specified agricultural work and residency requirements,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
Let that sink in. The person in charge of the security of our nation will grant “temporary resident status” to people who didn’t bother going through legal channels to get here. Criminals, in essence, will be rewarded by the Department of Homeland Security for breaching the security of United States!
Posted on the White House web site under immigration is some of the most euphemism-loaded tripe I’ve seen in awhile. Let’s look at the first paragraph:
On January 7, 2004 President Bush proposed a new temporary worker program to match willing foreign workers with willing U.S. employers when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs. The program would be open to new foreign workers, and to the undocumented men and women currently employed in the U.S. This new program would allow workers who currently hold jobs to come out of hiding and participate legally in America’s economy while not encouraging further illegal behavior.
If there’s any doubt in your mind that our government thinks we’re stupid, that paragraph should remove it. Let’s break it down:
- “match willing foreign workers with willing U.S. employers” — Companies that hired illegal aliens, in violation of U.S. law, will get a reprieve (?) and be allowed to keep formerly illegal, low-wage workers on the payroll with the government’s blessing.
- “The program would be open to new foreign workers…” — If this sounds like “open borders” to you, that’s because it is. Unless specific limits are set forth in the bill, there will be no limit to the number of “foreign workers” available for low-wage jobs. How would this encourage businesses to find Americans willing to work for the same wages? The answer is it doesn’t encourage businesses to find Americans first before turning to aliens, and that, dear readers, is the idea.
- “come out of hiding and participate legally…” — To say that someone is criminally inclined is a very uncool, politically incorrect thing to say. According to socialists, it’s circumstances, or childhood issues, or racism, or fill-in-the-blank, that causes an otherwise rational person to commit crimes. A standard excuse for the illegal activity of aliens is “they come here to work.” A significant portion do not.
They’re here to take advantage of our generous government goodies/freebies and/or make sure Mara Salvatrucha has staked out its territory among the hopelessly gullible Americans or otherwise rape or kill or drive around with no car insurance. I hope the Republicans’ sorry plan to pick up the “Hispanic vote” blows up right in their fat faces.
- “while not encouraging further illegal behavior” — Does anyone believe this misguided program would discourage illegal behavior? I’m not even talking about the national security problems yet. If someone’s friend or family member jumped the border and was rewarded for the crime, how would that discourage others from jumping the border, too?
Help me understand this: Is Bush doing away with immigration enforcement altogether? Or only against Mexicans? What about the others? Will the African or Middle Eastern alien be allowed to walk across the border anytime he wants with no reprisal? Open borders is what Bush is after. My blinders are off.
The official title of the AgJobs bill is Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act of 2005. Comical. The Senate bill (S. 359) and the House bill (H.R. 884) appear to be identical. To read both, go to THOMAS and search by bill number. For links to statistics and other sources, see Curious George and the Fox. I will update this post with links and the result of the Senate vote.
Update: A commenter raised an interesting point. If illegals are made “temporary residents,” businesses will have to offer them at least the minimum wage, which would/may encourage (?) them to seek Americans first. Somehow I think businesses will find a way to circumvent the law through various loopholes. If they hired illegal workers before, what’s to stop them from doing something illegal to pay “temporary residents” less than legal wages?
Update II (4/20): This is disgusting.
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Report and photos from a Minuteman volunteer…
Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist: “We did in our first 10 days what the federal government and Congress couldn’t do over the past 10 years.”
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I am 100% with you on this one. I am very dissappointed with Bush in this regard (among others).
I know exactly how you feel La Shawn, even my own Senator from Minnesota (Republican Norm Coleman) supports Amnesty for illegals
This bill is awful. Its a delayed deportation scheme. And it places the legality of immigrant workers right in the hands of their bosses. Talk about asking for abuse. You want your boss to be able to get you deported?
You’re right, actus. The bill is awful. We need to deport illegal aliens now rather than later. And I agree with you on the abuse. Deporting illegal aliens now rather than later should remedy that.
exactly. anyone who tells you there is a humanitarian purpose to this bill is lying. Its all about the deportation, and the transferring of powers away from people and towards their bosses.
I concur! There is nothing humane about legal citizens having to endure the burden of illegal aliens collecting welfare.
Ultimately, when illegal workers become legal, won’t they be subject to U.S. work requirements, i.e. minimum wage? Why would a business willing to employ illegal aliens suddenly agree to be legal and pay higher, legal rates when they could just continue to keep the workers illegal and cheap(er)? Won’t the problem just continue? I think actus is right about the abuse. It may change, but it’s not going away.
Forgive my ignorance, I’m sorta new to this story. That’s my initial understanding. Am I misguided/misinformed?
” There is nothing humane about legal citizens having to endure the burden of illegal aliens collecting welfare.”
Thats an interesting definition of the word “humane.” I mean our armed forces thinks that the sleep deprivation and other tactics used are humane.
“fair” is probably a word you want to use. but “humane”? i think not.
You make a good point about the minimum wage, Tony. Companies won’t get the super cheap labor if illegals become “temporary guest workers.” In that regard, they’d have to pay legal wages. If that’s the case, the incentive to break the law will be reduced. The point is, though, that illegal aliens should not be awarded legal status. I suspect the bill is simply a step closer to granting aliens full citizenship.
Actus - I used the right word.
Firstly I just want to say what a wonderful breath of fresh air it is to have found your site! And
Indigo Insights has it right … you *are* too cute to be indoors blogging so much
I wanted to mention something about the illegal legalization plan that I haven’t seen mentioned much , namely what is going to happen with social security revenue. Currently, many illegals are paying SS tax into the general (black hole) fund.
As I understand it, when they are ‘legalized’ that
money will be be shifted …. to the federal Thrift Saving Plan (which is backed by real investments instead of the ponzy game of the general fund).
http://www.heritage.org/Research/SocialSecurity/em849.cfm
Won’t this create an even bigger burden on the retirement system the rest of us poor working slobs are forced to participate in? And won’t it nicely beef up the federally owned TSP coffers?
I think if more people were made aware of this there might be a bit of outrage generated.
If I have misunderstood the plan please correct me.
And please keep up the great work La Shawn.
Well, you know my position on dealing with the subject of illegals - repatriation, except under certain qualifying conditions.
That said, this appears to be full of compromises and fraught with the potential for abuse, both to us and migrants.
What I want to see addresed is the issue of positive ID, and how citizenship will eventually be issued. Under no circumstances should aliens/guest workers be allowed to vote, nor access our services on our backs.
And the terms for citizenship should not be watered down.
Only Green Carders may apply after 7 years, in English only. To get there, mandatory courses on citizenship at 2 or 3 semester hour per year until 21 hours are earned.
If one doesn’t speak English, they better start learning since the citizenship test will be in English (preferably not designed by those who inhabit ivory towers), plus a requirement for US issued GED or better.
Time spent under guest worker (Pink Carders?) program does not count towards citizenship. If a Pink Carder wants to apply for a Green Card; start over and do it like everyone else.
See, this is why I say that politicans, at best, are amoral. Let one of those people coming in turn out to be gang members and kill someone or take part in a terrorist act and watch what happens….
“Actus - I used the right word.”
can you tell me why? i think you used it in order to mirror me. inhumane to take how much out of our federal budget?
I think insanity is a great word. Or… duplicitous? I don’t believe that anyone truly stupid becomes president of the US, so there’s undoubtedly more than meets the eye. He can’t claim compassion either because he certainly has advisors who’ve warned him of the problems with this bill.
You know, I have a friend who moved from Singapore to Washington (state) to marry an American. In order to do so, she spent months, years even, getting through all the red tape, barbed-wire, minefields, and machine-gun towers that INS (as it was then) put in the way of people wanting to come here. But she played by the rules, and is now a happily married woman in a rural Washington home.
For Bush to reward this horde of criminals that entered illegally along the southern border, just because he wants to please El Presidente Fox, is a slap in the face to my friend and to everyone else who endured the time and expense to play by the rules.
“For Bush to reward this horde of criminals that entered illegally along the southern border, just because he wants to please El Presidente Fox, is a slap in the face to my friend and to everyone else who endured the time and expense to play by the rules. ”
This isn’t an amnesty bill. It doesn’t lead to citizenship. It leads to deportation.
It should be obvious that Vincente Fox has compromising pictures of Bush.
As a minimum we should require any worker to have a certificate from the Mexican government vouching for their honesty and promising that Mexico will send them back to the United States for trial in the event they are charged with any crime, and that Mexico will take them back should they become a burden on the U.S. taxpayers.
Mexico can pay for these services by a tax on the money their workers send home.
Ah, but its greater goal is amnesty. Bush is kowtowing just like Reagan with the last great amnesty, which will only encourage more illegal immigration despite the fact that employers could have others deported.
Its effect on us in Texas will be chilling. It is already excruciatingly difficult working with students who have no command of the English language but are supposed to pass and excel at courses taught exclusively in English. That is not an endorsement of the current bilingual ed program, but something has to give!!!
The fact is that most illegal migrant agricultural labor does make at least minimum wage. That is really not the issue. The issue, at least for the agricultural employers knowingly employing illegals, is maintaining a low harvesting/labor cost. If they were forced to use “legal” labor the rate would go up, in some cases quite a bit. So the influx of illegals to this industry is really a way of suppressing rate/wage increases.
As to the subject of illegals paying into the SS “fund”. How long can an employer carry an illegal “on the books” before his bogus ID bounces back from SS? At best weeks. This is a myth; you cannot keep up with all the bounced SS numbers employing illegals as if they were legal. Most illegals working in agriculture are either “off the books” and the workers comp rolls, or are employed as independent contractors. As a contractor, being issued a 1099 at years end, the employer has at least a year to 18 months before IRS will notify you of a problem with the SS number. Off the books the illegals are mixed into crews that have some legals. Personally, I never saw the “profit” in carrying illegal labor this way. Why should you get stuck with their tax burden?
The real solution to this problem is to have it addressed as it was many years ago. If an employer is found to knowingly employ illegals in violation of the law, BURN them good! This worked for many a year. The invasion we are dealing with now only came about because the Government stopped the enforcement of these laws. The slide began after the ‘86 amnesty, one of the most fraud-ridden events I’ve ever been witness to. It just accelerated in the last half of the 90’s, to the flood we see today. I guarantee that if enough employers got time in club fed it would suddenly be to expensive to opt for illegal labor. Border security is important, but alone it will not stop the flow, they come because they know they will get work.
What really make me utterly disgusted is the Republicans who would destroy this Republic to gain financially. The Senate is utterly corrupt. Perhaps Mr. Jefferson was correct about The Tree of Liberty.
La Shawn, I appreciate the fact you are honest enough to see this fiasco for what it is.
Here’s what I think of Willing Employers and Willing Employees http://www.fromthepen.com/issue59.html
It looks an awful lot like indentured servitude. Those agri-business creeps, and their lackeys in congress, are trying to pull a fast one.
America, its people, security, and sovereignty are being gradually caught-up in a perfect political storm.
Pro low-wage-labor Republicans and pro support the-poor Democrats are joining to allow, not prevent, continued illegal entry into this country under the guise of the humane matching of a needy laborer(should this be slave?) to a needy(should this be greedy?) employer, all other interests aside.
What we are witnessing here, because the results are the same, is the selling of American workers on an international slave auction block for cheap and cheaper labor. International free-trade agreements began under the Democrats and continued gleefully under the Republicans, while a good idea and religiously adhered to by us, blatant violations of these agreements are NOT being ENFORCED by our paid representatives.
Washington DC’s failure to fix the rampant cheating of American hiring businesses through international patent, copyright and product dumping violations coupled with failure to fix the rampant cheating of American labor through international violations of foreign factory workers wage/union/safety/pollution conditions, has rendered American labor non-competitive and powerless in its own nation.
It’s insult to injury for our elected representatives, highly paid with our taxes they enact and DO ENFORCE, to fix the international violations of our borders for the security, sovereignty, competitiveness, and national debt load we are paying for.
You just can’t make this up.
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This isn’t an amnesty bill. It doesn’t lead to citizenship. It leads to deportation.
Comment by actus — 04.19.05 @ 7:14 pm
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Actus, what bill are you reading? After six years as a “temporary worker”, as long as they perform at leat 100 hours of Ag work a year and don’t commit any other crimes, they get a green card! That is not deportation, it is the first step to Citizenship!
Plus, all of their immediate family member will also get green cards.
“Actus, what bill are you reading? After six years as a “temporary workerâ€, as long as they perform at leat 100 hours of Ag work a year and don’t commit any other crimes, they get a green card!”
When this was first introed awhile ago I got a different description. This is better.
If it’s any solace for the no-green-card-for illegals, the 6 year timeline gives plenty of time to fix that “error”
Now that AgJobs has been killed, back to the drawing board.
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