Border betrayal: Bush's immigration plan amounts to de facto amnesty

I'm an immigrant, a legal one at that. Some may believe that as an immigrant, I would support all immigration-friendly policies. But I do not support President Bush's recent immigration-reform proposal. Immigrating to the United States is not easy. My family and I went through a lot of work to obtain our visas, legal residency and eventually, our citizenship. Other legal immigrants can share the pain of trying to find your way through the endless bureaucracy and red tape known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

Now, however, Bush's proposal would allow millions of illegal immigrants to obtain legal status as a temporary worker, which is the first of many steps to becoming a permanent resident or citizen.

Bush has argued that this isn't amnesty, and technically he's correct. But by putting illegals on the fast track to permanent status, this cuts too close to amnesty for me. It's "de facto amnesty."

As a legal immigrant, I feel betrayed by this policy. It endangers the U.S. by making it easier for terrorists to enter the country, and it flies in the face of our current immigration laws. If Bush really wants to reform immigration policy, he should have done a few important things. Once and for all, secure our borders. It's tough, yes, but so is fighting terrorism and we're still doing that. Despite decades of calls to strengthen our borders, the U.S. has slacked in this area.

The president should also reform the procedure for legal immigrants. The process is riddled with bureaucracy and red tape. Reforming the process would cut some government waste and help immigrants.

Illegal immigrants are a huge drain on federal and state social services. Bush's plan provides more incentive for potential illegals to risk getting into the country because now the potential benefits are much greater. This will increase the influx of illegal aliens into our country.

Many supporters of Bush's plan defend it by saying that the jobs illegals take are jobs that Americans don't want. That is not true. Given the chance, there have got to be many Americans willing to do these jobs instead of sitting at home unemployed.

Want a quick fix to our unemployment problems? Deport illegal immigrants instead of coddling them.

Further, if Americans don't want these jobs, what about the fact that fast-food joints, hotels and other services do just fine in states like Iowa with very small illegal-immigrant populations?

As Professor George J. Borjas recently explained in a New York Times article, these industries would have collapsed in Iowa and Nebraska if supporters of reform were correct. But they haven't. Why? Because plenty of others are willing to take the jobs when given the chance.

I still support Bush. While some of this proposal is probably attributed to vote-seeking, a lot of it may be because he simply believes this is the right thing to do. I just respectfully disagree.

And I think it makes for bad politics.

While working in politics at the state and national levels, I'm hearing more and more conservatives growing frustrated with Bush's policies. Many ask, "Who else are they going to vote for?" and conclude that the president's march to the middle of the political spectrum won't hurt him politically.

Granted, not many conservatives are about to vote for Howard Dean; instead, they may just stay home.

Not only will Bush lose votes from those people, but he is also sacrificing another important resource: campaign volunteers.

One of the single-most-important aspects of a political campaign is to be able to attract volunteers. But with Bush's recent pandering to the left, he's making it hard for young people like me to finish work late at night and still be excited to go stuff envelopes or do some other mundane but necessary task for the Bush campaign.

These volunteers then end up volunteering for other Republican campaigns, or just relaxing at home. Moving to the middle of the political spectrum is traditional in an election year, but don't frustrate your base so much that nobody cares enough to help — or vote for — you.

Nigel Stark is a UW senior. E-mail: NEXT@seattletimes.com