President Bush focused on immigration in his weekly radio address yesterday.

. . . First, America must secure its borders. Since I became President, we’ve increased funding for border security by 66 percent, hired thousands more Border Patrol agents, and caught and sent home about 6 million illegal immigrants. Yet, we have much more work to do.

I don’t know if anyone buys his “I’ve been tough on immigration” claim, but there’s no doubting that we must secure our borders. That’s an easy one to get right, so score one for Bush.

. . . Second, to secure our border we must create a temporary worker program that provides foreign workers a legal and orderly way to enter our country for a limited period of time. This program would reduce pressure on the border, meet the needs of our economy, and allow honest immigrants to provide for their families while respecting the law. And it will help us make certain we know who is in our country and why they are here.

I agree with the President on this one. A common sense guest worker program, of the type advocated by Newt Gingrich, is a net positive. However, it needs to be limited, and it can’t be used to reward past illegal behavoir.

Third, we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire by creating a better system for verifying documents and work eligibility. The system should include a new tamper-proof identification card for every legal foreign worker. This card would help us enforce the law and leave employers with no excuse for breaking it. And by making it harder for illegal immigrants to find work in our country, we would discourage people from crossing the border illegally in the first place.

Another point for Bush.

Fourth, we must resolve the status of millions of illegal immigrants who are already here. They should not be given an automatic path to citizenship. This is amnesty, and I oppose it. Amnesty would be unfair to those who are here lawfully, and it would invite further waves of illegal immigration.

Some people think any proposal short of mass deportation is amnesty. I disagree. There’s a rational middle ground between automatic citizenship for every illegal immigrant and a program of mass deportation. Illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay should have to pay a meaningful penalty, pay their taxes, learn English, and work in a job for a number of years. People who meet these conditions should be able to apply for citizenship — but approval will not be automatic, and they will have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law.

Sigh. Bush stumbles here, big time. Conservatives need to stop regurgitating liberal talking points from the open borders crowd. That the only way to get rid of illegal aliens is to deport them is a ridiculous strawman argument. You don’t need to deport them. If they can’t get work or government handouts, and have to be out of the country to apply for a guest worker card, they will leave on their own. And he’s wrong about what is and is not amnesty, as well.

Amnesty is when a person or group of people are made except from punishment. The punishment for illegal entry into the United States is deportation. Any program that removes the possibility of that punishment from occuring is amnesty, period. How hard you make it for them to becomes citizens is irrelevent. If they are allowed to take part in that process while illegally in the United States with no threat of deportation, that is amnesty, plain and simple.

Fifth, we must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot by helping newcomers assimilate into our society. Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for our flag, and the ability to speak and write in English.

Again, another easy rhetorical point for the President. We obviously need to do a better job assimilating immigrants.

The President has all the right talk, but the devil’s in the details. He has a long way to go to prove to conservatives that he’s serious about border security.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS