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PCUN, CAUSA, Oppose Bush Immigration Reform Call for Comprehensive Reform, Passage of AgJobs and DREAM Act PCUN, Oregon’s farmworker union, and CAUSA, Oregon’s immigrant rights coalition, join hundreds of immigrant rights organizations across the country in expressing our disappointment in and opposition to President Bush’s immigration reform plan announced January 7th. Rather than express active support of legislation such as AgJOBS and the DREAM Act, two pieces of legislation that support earned benefits and security safeguards for undocumented immigrants, President Bush failed to make any mention of this already-introduced legislation. He instead proposed the creation of a potentially huge new guest worker program that would essentially create a workforce with second-class status with no meaningful access to legal status or citizenship. The President also neglected to provide a timeline or plan as to when he hopes to draft legislation or introduce this plan to Congress. The details of the proposal show the President’s disregard for the principle of earning legal status through work that he had previously promoted. As proposed, his plan would allow an undocumented immigrant to apply for a temporary work permit through his or her employer, and to apply for legal status. However, even if the worker renewed the three-year temporary permit, his or her temporary worker status would likely expire before their application for legal status was approved due to the current backlog in immigration cases and the limited number of “green” (residence) cards issued each year. The worker would then be forced to either leave the United States or return to being undocumented, thus making the option of applying for legal status meaningless. Although the President said he supported increasing the number of green cards issued per year, he did not mention any specific number. This proposal is clearly beneficial to employers, who could hire temporary workers as long as there were no U.S. citizens interested in the job, while the immigrant worker would be in the position of working for three to six years and then facing deportation when his or her work permit expired. It is also highly reminiscent of the “bracero” program of the 1940’s, which similarly sought to reward temporary workers for returning to their country of origin; the President’s proposal suggests allowing undocumented workers to receive Social Security pensions from the money they paid into the system if they return to their country of origin. It is obvious that this election year proposal has been timed to appeal to Latino voters, yet the Latino community has already had years of lip service from Bush, first when he was Governor in Texas, then in the Presidential campaign of 2000, for the past three years as President, and now at the opening of his re-election campaign. Rather than further political posturing, however, what we want is active support now for equitable immigration reform. We deserve unambiguous action, yet this proposal leaves numerous ambiguities and doubts as to how it would be implemented and whom it would ultimately benefit. A truly comprehensive plan for immigration reform must provide a path to legalization and address the reality of the 8 to 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States today, many of whom are settled here and are not in a position to or desire to return to their countries of origin. The President’s proposal is simply a glorified guest worker program; it does nothing to further our goals for immigration reform. PCUN and CAUSA strongly support the DREAM Act and the AgJOBS bill, neither of which have been voted on in Congress as of yet. The DREAM Act would provide a path to legal residency and eventually citizenship for undocumented college students, while the AgJOBS bill would do so for an estimated 500,000 farmworkers. These two bills, both of which have strong bipartisan support, represented an excellent opportunity for the Bush administration to step in and support immigration reform by promoting their passage, yet the President instead took a hands-off approach, saying only that he would sign the bills if they reached his desk. In fact, his top aides are apparently now saying privately that Bush opposes AgJOBS and DREAM. If this is true, it’s further underscores Bush’s initiative as a political ploy. PCUN and CAUSA have been involved on a national level promoting the passage of thisAgJOBS and DREAM, and in developing principles and goals for immigration reform. PCUN and CAUSA also participated in the organizing of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, and members of both organizations traveled across the country from Portland to Washington, DC, along with buses from eleven other cities, to promote immigration reform. In the face of President Bush’s insufficient, ineffective immigration reform proposal, we stand by the principles of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride and will use them to evaluate any and all immigration reform legislation that is proposed:
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