Workers Could Stay Six Years or More

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
 
President Bush, saying the nation has failed millions of illegal immigrants who live in fear of deportation, yesterday proposed an ambitious plan that would allow undocumented workers to legally hold jobs in the United States for the first time.

Taking on an issue he shelved after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush proposed a program that would make the 8 million undocumented immigrants in the United States eligible for temporary legal status for at least six years, as long as they are employed. But it would not automatically put them on a path to obtaining citizenship or even permanent resident status.

"We must make our immigration laws more rational, and more humane," Bush told 200 Latino supporters attending his first White House announcement of the election year. "I believe we can do so without jeopardizing the livelihoods of American citizens."

What Bush calls his "temporary worker" program was eagerly embraced by business groups but condemned as stingy and impractical by advocates for immigrants. The administration hopes the plan will appeal to Hispanic voters and expand the Republicans' base, and strategists in both parties described it as politically shrewd. But many said it has little chance of passing Congress in the form Bush described.

A presidential adviser said the immigration plan appeared to be the opening chapter of an agenda being designed by Bush aides who are planning for a general election race against former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who has sprinted to the front among Democratic contenders. Dean said in a statement that Bush's plan "would create a permanent underclass of service workers with second-class status." Other elements are likely to include proposals to limit lawsuits and add private accounts as part of the Social Security system.

Labor advocates warned that the president's proposal to have workers sponsored by employers to obtain legal status would prevent them from complaining about job conditions, out of fear that the employer would revoke the relationship and have them deported. Others cautioned that employers could use the threat of recruiting low-wage, legal immigrants to threaten existing U.S. employees and prevent them from seeking better working conditions.

Bush is scheduled to meet Monday in Mexico with President Vicente Fox, who has been prodding the White House to make changes in border policy. Bush called
his Mexican counterpart yesterday morning, and Fox saidthe two spoke for about 15 minutes.

"He sent warm greetings to all Mexicans, particularly to those Mexicans who are there, in the United States," Fox told reporters at the opening of a primary school in
Mexico City. "It's a very interesting program. We are going to wait for details."

In addition to conferring temporary legal status on undocumented workers now in the country, Bush's program would allow an unlimited number of new immigrants
to enter as long as they obtain jobs through a database that would be run by the government and would offer the openings first to U.S. citizens.

Under Bush's plan, foreign workers would be legal for three years and then could renew their status at least once. The White House plans to negotiate the number of
renewals with Capitol Hill, but Bush said "it will have an end." The plan would include financial incentives for temporary workers to return to their home countries.

The temporary workers -- administration officials anticipate most would be Mexican -- would be given biometrically encoded cards. They would allow the workers
to come and go legally to their home countries, a trip now difficult and occasionally dangerous for illegal workers who must sneak back into the United States.

Workers entering the country would not be charged a fee for the temporary status. Illegal immigrants now in the United States would pay an unspecified fee but
would not be prosecuted or expelled.

Some members of Congress said that would have the effect of rewarding people who had broken the law by using phony documents to obtain jobs. House Majority
Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said he believes Congress can come up with "a strong and compassionate policy" on immigration but said he has "heartfelt reservations
about allowing illegal immigrants into a U.S. guest-worker program that seems to reward illegal behavior."

House Republican officials described the guest-worker issue as a low priority for GOP lawmakers, many of whom have expressed concern that a new program
would take jobs from constituents.

Opponents derided Bush's proposal as an "amnesty," a politically charged term that causes conservatives to recoil. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), a member of the
House subcommittee that would consider the bill, said it "amounts to the forgiveness of a criminal act, no different under the law than printing hundred-dollar bills in
your garage."

Bush said in his remarks that he opposes "amnesty, placing undocumented workers on the automatic path to citizenship." The White House said the plan is not an
amnesty because it is temporary and does not lead to a green card, or lawful permanent residency.

Bush said in the future, enforcement would be stepped up against companies that hire illegal workers.

"Our homeland will be more secure when we can better account for those who enter our country, instead of the current situation in which millions of people are
unknown to the law," he said. "Law enforcement will face fewer problems with undocumented workers and will be better able to focus on the true threats to our
nation from criminals and terrorists."

Business groups, made up of some of Bush's biggest financial backers, welcomed the plan as a way to create a stable workforce and alleviate labor shortages for
low-wage and dangerous jobs that Americans disdain in agriculture and the hotel, health, restaurant and construction industries.

"We have a problem with projected job growth and a diminishing workforce, and the economy can't expand unless we have workers to fill available jobs," said
Randy Johnson, vice president for labor and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Advocates for immigrants complained that Bush's proposal does not provide an automatic route for temporary workers to become citizens and said it was designed
instead as a path to deportation after the expiration of a worker's temporary legal status.

"We're going to be creating, under this type of legislation, a large number of basically indentured servants," said Susan F. Martin, an immigration expert at
Georgetown University who was executive director of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, a government panel that examined the issue in the 1990s. She
called Bush's plan "as troubling an immigration proposal as I've seen in the past 25 years."

Martin said the program was unlikely to persuade immigrants to go home when their guest-worker visas expired, especially those who have spent years in the United
States.

Even some immigration officials privately expressed concerns about how the new system would be administered, noting there is a backlog of 5.5 million people who
have applied for immigration benefits.

Bush's plan is similar to legislation introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who said in a telephone interview that the president should use his State of the Union
address this month to set a deadline for Congress to act before the August recess. "I worry about it just being an issue that is talked about, when we need to act," he
said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said in Mexico that he is confident an immigration plan will make it through Congress "because it is a security issue."

But a House leadership aide said that at least 50 Republicans would be unlikely to vote for such a measure, and most Democrats would probably reject it to avoid
giving Bush a victory during his reelection campaign.

Bush told the East Room audience that many undocumented workers had "entrusted their lives to the brutal rings of heartless human smugglers" only to be cut off
from their families as they lived in "the shadows of American life -- fearful, often abused and exploited."

"As a nation that values immigration, and depends on immigration, we should have immigration laws that work and make us proud, yet today we do not," Bush said.
"The system is not working. Our nation needs an immigration system that serves the American economy, and reflects the American dream."

Correspondent Kevin Sullivan in Mexico City and staff writers Mary Beth Sheridan and Greg Schneider in Washington contributed to this report.

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