Karen,

 

You would not suggest the “Center for American Progress” offers objective commentary, would you?

 

Harry

 

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Henry George School of Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box 655  Tujunga  CA  91042
Tel: 818 352-4141  --  Fax: 818 353-2242
http://haledward.home.comcast.net
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Karen Watters Cole
Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 3:34 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Bush's amnesty program for illegalimmigrantworkers:Texan Trojan Horse?

 

Here’s the collection of commentary from Center for American Progress on this topic, which definitely believes it is a Trojan Horse, or institutionalizing the Wal-Martization of America.

I’ve also since learned that other border municipalities utilize matricula consulars to give Mexican workers some access to legitimate identification.

Blue Links are live. Italics are mine. - KWC

IMMIGRATION
Corporate Compassion

The President announced his new temporary guest worker proposal yesterday in the East Room of the White House, touting the plan as "more compassionate and more humane." But the President's proposal, which would allow undocumented immigrant workers to obtain temporary legal status, falls far short of his lofty rhetoric. The primary beneficiaries are businesses that employ undocumented workers, whose low-wage workforce will now be legitimized. Meanwhile, workers who provide years of labor could be forced to return to their home countries in as few as three years or face deportation proceedings. Susan F. Martin, an immigration expert at Georgetown University and former director of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, called the plan "as troubling an immigration proposal as I've seen in the past 25 years."

DANGER OF WORKER ABUSE: According to the President, "Participants who do not remain employed...will be required to return to their home." As a result workers are forced "to tie their fates to employer 'sponsors' who could ship them back home for complaining about job conditions." Specifically, there is no reason to believe that workers who report discrimination, labor law violations or any other abuses would be protected from termination of their employment and deportation. AFL-CIO president John Sweeney said that as a result, "the plan deepens the potential for abuse and exploitation of these workers." In an interview with American Progress, former INS General Counsel and Georgetown Law Professor Alex Aleinikoff noted the plan fails to “regularize long-term contributors to the U.S. economy.”  Unsurprisingly, "business groups, made up of some of Bush's biggest financial backers, welcomed the plan" as a way to fill "low-wage and dangerous jobs." Professor Martin, said that Bush's plan effectively created "a large number of basically indentured servants."

NO PERMANANT SOLUTION: The President assured his audience that the plan requires "temporary workers to return permanently to their home countries after their period of work in the United States has expired" and that he "opposes amnesty." The White House makes clear that "the program should not connect participation to a green card or citizenship." Demetrios Papademetriou, co-direction of the Migration Policy Institute sums up the problem this way: "Why should they show up, pay the fees that will be required of them, go through all the process...so, what, they can be thrown out of the country in six years." Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, predicts that "if the offer is a temporary visa with uncertain prospects for renewal and no path to permanent residency, you won't have a lot of takers."

NEEDED: MORE POLICY, LESS PANDERING: There is little evidence the Administration is genuinely committed to advancing a meaningful immigration reform agenda. The proposal was announced yesterday without accompanying legislation, few details and no timetable for action. In fact, the most detailed information on the proposal may be contained in a transcript of a conference call conducted Tuesday by a senior Administration official that was posted on the Internet by blogger Josh Marshall. The LA Times reports, "Bush's supporters hope he will reap a substantial political dividend just by proposing it." According to a senior Congressional aide the early word from the White House on the proposal was "not essential for the president that it be enacted this year." And questions abound on whether the White House will even expend the political capital to take on conservatives in Congress who already oppose the plan. As Raj Goyle, an expert at American Progress, told the NY Daily News, "If Bush really cared about this policy, he would stand up to his anti-immigration friends in Congress."

Also see Bumiller: Border Politics as Bush Woos 2 Key Groups with Proposal  @ http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/politics/08ASSE.html

 


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