Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

yalan · Joined: 08 Jan 2004 Posts: 1 Location: USA

President Bush gave a speech last night and announced his proposal regards what-he-thinks-resolving-the-immigration-problems proposal. He wants to make ALL the illegal immigrants become "temporarily" legal resident and give them all working permits and give them the right to have the social security benifits.

What do you think?

I truly believe that he is asking for troubles and he is only trying to get re-elected as a president again.

He jut lost my vote!! Evil or Very Mad

Zanthrick · Joined: 31 Mar 2003 Posts: 51 Location: IA, USA

The only problem I have with it is that instead of providing a "better way" for more illegal aliens try to enter legally, it could easily be abused as providing cheap temporary labor instead.

That and I think it should apply to all countries, and not just Mexico. I know it's aimed at coming up with a more practical solution to the current immigration flow from Mexico then the current one, but I like to dream I guess Razz

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czbj19821016 · Joined: 10 Feb 2004 Posts: 2

I don`t believe in what he have said. See what he had said on the Iraq.

dulbecco · Joined: 20 Feb 2004 Posts: 1

Issue number 1: There was another temporary worker program in the US - the "Bracero" program in the 40s and 50s. It was the cause of a lot of exploitation of immigrant labor because employers could hold the threat of deportation over the heads of the workers to keep wages and benefits low. In addition, they could just ship in more "Braceros" if the ones already in the country got too uppity. In other words, a previous "temporary worker visa" program already ended in failure; why should this one be different?

Issue number 2: The proposed plan makes it easier for workers outside the country to get in, but does absolutely nothing (or maybe negatively affects) the status of illegal immigrants already in the country. There is no benefit to them to register for the program. It would expose them to government scrutiny and does not provide any mechanism for obtaining a green card.

Issue number 3: The stick is hidden. The carrot is legalization of immigrant workers. I assume Bush also plans to ask for more money for immigration enforcement and tightening of the border as an incentive to use the temporary worker visa, but Bush's administration is hiding the details of those changes from the Latino community in the US and hoping they won't realize that they're walking into a trap.