Bush faces major hurdles with immigration reform

President Bush offered a heartfelt defense of his proposed guest worker program for immigrants seeking employment in the United States, but it will take more than words for a skeptical Congress to endorse what critics contend would amount to amnesty for the 8 million to 12 million illegals.
Bush, who as governor of Texas was intimately involved in what he calls "border politics," said at a news conference Monday that one of the main reasons for immigration reform is to take pressure off Border Patrol agents who should be "chasing crooks and thieves and drug runners and terrorists." In that, the president is right.
America's borders will always be porous and having agents chasing down foreigners looking for work is a waste of manpower.
"It makes sense to allow the good-hearted people who are coming here to do jobs that Americans won't do a legal way to do so," Bush said. "And providing that legal avenue, it takes the pressure off the border."
Jobs that Americans won't do? The administration may have a hook for its immigration reform policy with that issue if it can clearly demonstrate what those jobs entail and why Americans are unwilling to do them.
Indeed, the White House should be prepared to respond to critics like Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, who said, "The mantra that immigrants do jobs Americans won't do is widely believed, but is economic gibberish."
Is it, in fact, economic gibberish, or can Bush's contention be supported with studies showing which industries would collapse if all undocumented workers in this country were suddenly deported?
Demeaning jobs?
And if it is true that Americans won't do the jobs that immigrants now do, the question that must be answered is "why?" Is it because the jobs are demeaning? Or, it is because the pay is so low and the working conditions so bad that only desperate people from poverty stricken countries would consider doing them?
Under the president's plan, such individuals would be given a card or permit that would last for a prescribed period, but would not be a precursor to citizenship. Bush said that anyone in the country who is working and wants to become a citizen would have to get in line with those who have been here legally.
The card or permit would benefit employers who now have to rely on workers providing their own identification, which often times is false, and would reduce the smuggling of illegals, especially from Mexico, into the U.S.
And, the president said, the guest worker program would save people from walking miles across the desert in Arizona and Texas in order to earn a living to feed their families. Often times, death is the price of such desperation.
Bush is right when he says that the nature of the United States is "one that is good-hearted and compassionate."
Immigration reform certainly meets the definition of family values, which the Republican Party, led by the president, embraced as a key plank in its platform in the November general election. The GOP has strengthened its grip on Congress, and Bush has made it clear that the American people have given him political capital to spend in the next four years. The ball, therefore, is in their court.