Switching priorities, he only touches on guest-worker plan
- Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Washington -- President Bush promised a renewed push for changes in immigration law Monday, reversing the priorities he had set out nearly two years ago by emphasizing tougher border enforcement and mentioning his controversial guest-worker program almost as an afterthought.

Bush joins several congressional Republicans in Congress, including several likely presidential candidates, who intend to make an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws a priority heading into the 2006 midterm elections.
"Illegal immigration is a serious challenge," Bush told a gathering of border enforcement officials in Tucson. "And our responsibility is clear. We are going to protect the border."

Calls for tougher border enforcement resonate in both parties and with the public, but the problem of how to deal with the estimated 11 million people now in the United States illegally deeply divides Republicans and poses an enormous political and practical quandary.

As if to illustrate the problem, Bush appeared with Arizona's two Republican senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, who have proposed radically different approaches to changing an immigration system that all sides agree is badly broken.

McCain's plan, co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, emphasizes a new guest worker program. Kyl's proposal, co-sponsored by Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, calls for deporting millions of people residing in the country illegally in order for them to apply for legal guest worker status.

Pushing for tougher border enforcement might please conservatives, but it risks alienating two critical Republican constituencies: the growing Latino voting bloc that Bush has courted assiduously throughout his presidency and the nation's business community, which provides the lobbying and financial muscle Republicans rely on to pass legislation.

Many conservatives, particularly in the Republican-dominated House, want to focus exclusively on a border crackdown; other Republicans and many Democrats insist that such a crackdown is futile without also enlarging the legal avenues for immigrants seeking work.

Bush did not embrace the deportation idea. He also insisted, late in Monday's speech, that the borders cannot be controlled without expanding the avenues for legal entry.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Russell Wilcox is a retired college professor who spends several months in Florida and several months in Rhode Island each year, and whose interests include boating and sailing, political activism, ballroom dancing and bridge. He has an MBA from Harvard, a Computer Systems CAGS from Bryant and a BS from Northeastern. He has worked in industry for EG&G and Texas Instruments, operated his own business with more than 200 employees, and served as Director of the Computer Information Systems Program for Stonehill College. He is a published author of two technical studies, and is the proud father of four children and the proud grandfather of six grandchildren. A holder of two patents in microchip connections and a true product of the melting pot, his father is the son of a Yankee farmer, and his mother the second generation daughter of Italian immigrants who retained their culture, but strove mightily to become Americans, sending four sons to fight against Hitler and Mussolini.