- President Bush yesterday ruled out granting "blanket
amnesty" to as many as 12 million immigrants illegally in the United
States, but said he supports a policy that benefits American business owners
and immigrant job seekers.
-
- "We need to have an immigration policy that
helps match any willing employer with any willing employee," Mr. Bush
said in a news conference yesterday.
-
- "It makes sense that that policy go forward.
And we're in the process of working that through now so I can make a recommendation
to the Congress," said Mr. Bush about the politically dicey issue
- made more urgent by his planned attendance at the Summit of the Americas
in Monterrey, Mexico, next month.
-
- But the president reiterated a stance he has enunciated
often: "This administration is firmly against blanket amnesty."
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- The president did not spell out his preferred policy.
A handful of options are floating around Capitol Hill, including one co-sponsored
by several Republicans who propose giving legal residency to illegal immigrants
through work.
-
- Senior White House officials have expressed support
for such a temporary-worker program that would let some workers become
legal immigrants, but so far the administration has not backed any single
piece of legislation.
-
- Yesterday, a White House official said Mr. Bush's
comments represent no change from previous administration policy.
-
- The president's comments come a week after Homeland
Security Secretary Tom Ridge expressed support for giving legal status
to immigrants. In Miami, Mr. Ridge said: "The bottom line is, as a
country we have to come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12 million illegals,
afford them some kind of legal status some way, but also as a country decide
what our immigration policy is and then enforce it."
-
- Before the September 11 attacks, the administration
had begun talks with Mexican President Vicente Fox about ways to legalize
more than 3 million undocumented Mexicans living in the United States.
The dialogue ended after the attacks.
-
- High-level representatives of each government reopened
talks last month with a meeting in Washington, but relations between Mr.
Bush and Mr. Fox have been chilly for some time.
-
- While the two leaders met briefly in Bangkok at an
international economic summit in October, lending an air of optimism to
the new talks, relations soured again yesterday as Mexico accused the United
States of violating international law over its treatment of 52 Mexican
nationals on death row.
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- In a court filing, Mexico asked the World Court in
The Hague to order the United States to retry the Mexicans, saying those
arrested were not told of their right to consular help.
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- The last major legalization program in 1986, when
more than 2 million illegal immigrants were granted blanket amnesty, was
a failure. The move did not stem illegal immigration, but instead created
an avenue for millions of new immigrants to legally enter the country to
visit newly legal relatives. Many illegally overstayed their temporary
visas.
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- With that lesson in mind, top Republican lawmakers
are proposing legislation that would impose a $1,500 fine on illegal immigrants
before they were granted legal residency in the United States. Those illegal
entrants also would have to line up behind workers who entered the United
States under a guest-worker program as they sought legal residency.
-
- "If you do not deal with both pieces of it -
those people who are here in an undocumented status, as well as those future
want-to-be immigrants - all you do is create the next wave of immigrants
who will come into the country illegally," Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona,
one of three Republican authors of a comprehensive immigration-reform bill,
said last week.
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- Another piece of legislation known as the DREAM Act
would give legal and permanent status to tens of thousands of children
of undocumented immigrants. The bill, whose name is an acronym for Development,
Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, was sponsored by Sen. Orrin
G. Hatch, Utah Republican. It recently passed in the Senate Judiciary Committee
and is awaiting a full vote by the Senate.
-
- In September, Democratic and Republican lawmakers
jointly proposed legislation that would allow 500,000 undocumented farm
workers to become legal U.S. residents. The bill is awaiting a vote in
the Judiciary Committee.
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