December 21, 2004
STEEL-DRIVIN' MAN:
Bush presses for reform on border policy (James G. Lakely, 12/21/04, THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
President Bush said yesterday he wants to reform immigration policy so that the Border Patrol will be "chasing crooks and thieves and drug-runners and terrorists," and not the thousands who cross the border every day to find work. [...]Conservatives have resisted the president's plan, arguing that it amounts to an amnesty for those who are currently breaking the law and that the relaxed rules could be exploited by terrorists.
Mr. Bush assured critics that "one of the important aspects of my vision is that this is not automatic citizenship.
"The American people must understand that," Mr. Bush said. "If somebody who is here working wants to be a citizen, they can get in line like those who have been here legally and have been working to become a citizen in a legal manner."
While the press is more fascinated by the President grasping what used to be the third rail of American politics--Social Security--but has now become an excellent political issue for Republicans, the real excitement lies in his willingness to grasp the fourth rail--immigration--where racism and economic warfare bring Left and Right together to form a formidable majority in opposition to any reform whatsoever. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 21, 2004 2:31 PM
Bush has suffered because our good neighbor to the South, Vicente Fox, has decided that his contribution to immigration reform will be little more than handing unemployed Mexicans bus tickets to Tijuana and a Greyhound bus schedule. While he does this, he maintains a shoot on sight policy towards Central Americans sneaking into Mexico.
The biggest problem Bush has is that so many employers in the US from restaurants to landscapers benefit from having cheap, non-English speaking, easily exploited labor. How he deals with them will be telling.
Posted by: Bart at December 22, 2004 6:53 AM