Molly Ivins: Bracing for bracero

[Dudley_DUright]

In Texas, where the border is a constant presence in our lives, no one is mistaking President Bush's immigration proposal for a brilliant new departure in immigration policy, or even for a ploy to get Hispanic political support. What we have here is the old bracero program, a guest worker program, and it primarily benefits one group and one group only -- big business. And that would be OK, if other parts of the program totaled up to a net improvement in the current situation. That's what we need to look at and weigh.

Even by normal standards of partisan journalism, there has been an awful lot of knee-jerk commentary on this proposal by people who don't seem to know how the underground economy works. Some liberals are dismissing the Bush proposal as nothing but politics, a way to get brownie points with Hispanics when it has no chance of going anywhere in Congress. Seems to me we owe Bush the benefit of the doubt on this, and it may not even be smart politically: The program would grant temporary legal status to about 8 million immigrants, but it's not going to make the 9 million Americans who are out of work happy, and some of them vote.

The proposal has merit as a way to deal with future immigrants, said Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union. "If I'm sitting in Mexico thinking about coming north for a job, this makes sense to me. But if I'm already here, it makes no sense. This is a way to deal with future flows of immigration, but it means the (8 million to) 11 million already here are never going to be legalized. These are people who have been here 15, 20 years, paying taxes, having children, part of the community. They're talking about apples and oranges."

Longtime workers would not automatically be put on the path to obtaining citizenship or even permanent resident status. They would further logjam a system that already takes up to 10 years. Bush, who proposes to cut domestic spending again this year, made no mention of how to pay for the new program.

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http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16267