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President Bush’s Plan For Immigrants: January 8, 2004 New York City, January 8, 2004. Yesterday, President Bush proposed a new temporary worker program as the centerpiece of his Administration’s efforts to reform the nation’s immigration system. Immigrant, labor and religious leaders from around New York State held a press conference today to blast the President’s proposed program, demanding a reform package from the White House that provides a path to citizenship for immigrant workers and addresses the enormous backlogs and service delays in other parts of the immigration system. "The message to immigrants at the heart of President Bush’s policy announcement yesterday was that they are welcome in our economy but not in our society,” said Margie McHugh, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an umbrella policy and advocacy organization for over 150 groups in New York State. "Throughout his remarks Mr. Bush praised the hard work of generations of immigrants in building America and seeking the American dream, yet his proposal would explicitly deny the American dream to immigrants from this generation onwards,” McHugh continued. “Under the guise of immigration reform, the President has proposed a guest worker program which does not lead to permanent residency and citizenship and essentially says to immigrant communities ‘work hard, pay taxes and then get lost,’" McHugh said. Immigrant community leaders have suspected for months that the Bush Administration would attempt to appropriate the term “legalization,” which is popularly understood in immigrant communities to mean legal status and a path to U.S. citizenship, and apply it to a massive, new guest worker program that temporarily allows immigrants to work, but that does not allow them to settle in the United States. Yesterday’s announcement confirmed their fears. Guillermo Chacon, Spokesperson for the Salvadoran American National Network, underscored the dangers hidden in the program. "People may join the program thinking that employment authorization and the ability to travel will improve their lives, and it may, in the short term. But ultimately, it is clear that the Administration plans this to be a temporary benefit. After a few short years the immigrant worker will once again find him or herself without status and facing deportation. In the end, this program provides cheap, exploitable labor for the American economy with complete disregard for the future of immigrant workers, their families and communities." "Latino voters will not be fooled. We know that all that glitters is not gold," said Moises Perez, Executive Director of Alianza Dominicana, the largest organization serving New York’s Dominican community. “President Bush’s proposal is a dead-end, not an opportunity,” Perez continued. “Our families, our communities and our country need and deserve a serious immigration reform proposal from President Bush, not a 21st century bracero program. A serious proposal would provide a true legalization program, a path to permanent residency for hard working immigrants, and an end to the backlogs and disorganization of immigration services which result in years of waiting and anguish for citizens and residents who want to be re-united with their families," Perez said. In his announcement the President also raised the prospect that the citizenship process would be made more difficult in the near future. Many organizations in New York City have been closely watching a process currently underway at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that is attempting to “re-engineer” the citizenship process. One of the most controversial changes under consideration is creating four separate tests of English proficiency that must be passed by prospective applicants; the new tests have already been piloted at immigration offices around the country. “One of the most disturbing aspects of the President’s remarks for the millions of lawful immigrants already residing in the U.S. was his indication that the citizenship process would be made tougher,” said Margaret Chin, Deputy Executive Director of Asian Americans for Equality, one of the City’s leading organizations serving the Asian American community. “This is just another example of the President being out of touch with the reality of immigrants’ lives and the types of reforms that are need to our immigration system,” she continued. “Tens of thousands of would-be citizens in New York cannot find affordable English classes that would help them pass the current citizenship exam. Rather than proposing practical steps to make more English classes and citizenship application assistance available to these individuals, the President wants to make it even harder, in many cases impossible, for them to become U.S. citizens,” Chin said. The President’s announcement did not address several pieces of immigration legislation have been the focus of intense debate in the Congress over the past year. The DREAM Act would provide legal status to undocumented high school students who have grown up in the U.S. and want to continue their education. The AgJOBS bill would provide legal status to many of the country’s undocumented farm workers and reform the process that currently allows agribusiness to exploit immigrant workers. And the CLEAR Act would force state and local police to enforce immigration laws or else lose key federal funding. Given the high profile of the debate
around these bills, many community leaders saw it as a serious blow
that the President maintained his silence on them at the precise
moment he was showcasing his Administration's immigration policy
priorities. "Supporting passage without delay of the DREAM
Act and the AgJOBS bills is practically a litmus test of the President's
sincerity about true reform of what he so correctly calls an outdated
and unfair immigration system," said John Bingham of Catholic
Charities of Rockville Centre and chair of the For Immediate Release Contact: Margie
McHugh |
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