President George Bush's renewed call for a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants is being met locally with mixed reviews. In a press conference on Jan. 26, Bush reiterated his desire to reform the immigration system by granting illegal immigrants the ability to work temporarily in jobs that most Americans don't want.
Bush first outlined his proposal in January 2004. It would have to be approved by Congress.
The program would be open to new foreign workers and undocumented immigrants employed in the country as of Jan. 7, 2004. It would grant an individual legal status for three years, which could be renewed for three more years. At the end of the six-year period, the temporary workers would have to return home.
The idea is a good one, said Moses Lopez, a laborer who said he is working here legally. In the mornings, he hangs out on Butterfield Stage Road, just south of Rancho California, looking for work in landscaping.
"A lot of people are hungry," said Lopez, who came to the United States seven years ago from Mexico. "There's no work in Mexico. (And when there is), they pay very little money."
Another supporter of the proposal is Scott McIntyre, president of Sierra Pacific Farms in Temecula, which grows avocados. He said the proposal would achieve two benefits: creating an identification card that employers could trust and providing a steady stream of workers.
"As an employer, I would kind of like some sort other identification so that I know it's real, so I'm actually hiring a real, legal person," he said. "Some of the identification I get is so close, but we can't make the call as employers."
The proposal has its share of critics. Chief among them is Freeman Sawyer, a former Murrieta resident and member of Temecula-based Citizens Alliance for a Secure America.
"I would say that this is absolutely the worst idea that has come along in a long time," Sawyer opined. "We have currently in the U.S. an estimate of 20 million illegal aliens. We have 10 percent of Mexico's population living in our country. Most people are not interested in bringing more illegal aliens into the U.S., no matter what you call them or how you get them here. We have enough."
Instead, Sawyer suggests his own solution —— seal the border, take a tougher stance against businesses that hire illegal immigrants and start deporting the ones who are already here.
"No plan can work unless the first step is sealing the border, because that's what the problem is and, all of these plans that forget about that part, we're just gonna have a continuation," he said.
Another critique of the plan is that it will be tough to enforce the workers' exit from the country once their legal status expires, opponents say.
"So, you invite somebody over here and they become a guest worker, so they're registered and all this other stuff, but what happens if it's time to leave and they don't?" asked Temecula City Councilman Mike Naggar. "What stops them from getting false documentation? Or assimilating under another name? There are too many holes in (the system) right now. We just need to enforce the laws we have on the books right now."
In his State of the Union speech Wednesday, Bush touted his proposal as a humane way to deal with the issue of illegal immigration and a way to facilitate border protection. Opponents call it exploitation of cheap labor.
"It's a pragmatic, economic approach that the administration is taking by satisfying certain corporate, business interests within the Republican Party that are dependent on having a source of cheap labor," said UC Riverside Professor Armando Navarro, who also serves as coordinator for the National Alliance for Human Rights, an immigrant advocacy group. "Obviously, the administration recognizes the value and contribution of the undocumented worker to where they want to continue to exploit that labor for the purpose of making sure those business, corporate interests are making their profits."
Navarro speculated that the proposal will encounter turbulence as it makes it way through Congress because of a contradiction within the Republican Party.
While one side wants a steady stream of cheap labor, the other side feels under siege from immigration south of the border, he said.
"People like Border Patrol, militias and a lot of groups in Temecula there, they predicate their ethnocentrist, nativist politics on the idea that these Mexicans are coming in, invading our country, (and) threatening the security of our country," he said.
Contact staff writer Deirdre Newman at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2623, or dnewman@californian.com.
