Blanket Amnesty With Any Other Name...

President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox have been working to loosen our immigration policies since the start of Bush's administration. Their plan was temporarily stymied when the public suddenly realized our vulnerable state after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. Apparently they now feel that enough time has passed to try again. Bush proposed the new policy in a speech on January 8, 2004.

What Bush wants to do is "legalize" about eight million criminal aliens already resident in the US, and set up a system to invite thousands more Mexican immigrants who supposedly have jobs waiting. The aliens who are working would also be added to the Social Security program. He specifically denies that his plan constitutes a "blanket amnesty." He justifies it on the basis that some jobs are unwanted by Americans and must be filled by immigrants. Incredibly, he also claims that the system would enhance security since it would help the government to keep track of resident aliens.

The claim that Bush's proposal is not a blanket amnesty is important to gain support for the program. All previous amnesties have come with promises that "this will be the last…from now on we'll be enforcing our border security." No serious effort has ever been made to keep any of those promises, so Americans are leery of amnesty programs. If Americans believe that this is an amnesty program, it will be harder to get public support.

So is the proposal something different from a blanket amnesty? I guess if we say that "blanket" means "with no exceptions" we might be able to stretch the point to say this is something different. But amnesty for eight million criminal aliens is still a huge amnesty, with most of the same problems as the "blanket" variety.

The mostly minimum wage employees would further drain our welfare and healthcare systems. While it may be hard to find Americans who want the low-wage jobs, if the demand for workers continues the market will bring the wages up until employees can be attracted. With an unlimited supply of bottom dollar workers, that will never happen.

The program would encourage thousands or millions more Mexican immigrants to continue the fracturing of our culture into English and Spanish speaking segments. We are a long way from assimilating the huge backlog of legal immigrants already in our country. If the trend continues, our society will be permanently divided.

The claim that amnesty will improve security is an insult to our intelligence. Terrorists among the criminal aliens who want to stay on our side of the border will simply not seek the amnesty. They will be exactly as safe as they ever were.

Americans overwhelmingly oppose amnesty for illegal aliens. According to an article in the January 9, 2003 Washington Times, "A Zogby poll from 2002 found that 58 percent of Americans wanted to reduce immigration, 65 percent disagreed with amnesty and 68 percent felt the United States should deploy military troops to the border to curb illegal immigration."

Given the massive public disapproval for Bush's proposal, it should be possible to prevent its adoption. Opponents should be in constant touch with their representatives and senators on this issue.