President Bush Announces Commitment to Immigration Reform
Posted Jan 08, 2004

On January 7, 2004, President Bush announced a commitment to an immigration reform plan. We take this opportunity to share highlights of the proposal or commitment for our MurthyBulletin and MurthyDotCom readers. We also outline our analysis of the proposal and our conclusion that it is potentially a good beginning to a complex and difficult problem that affects millions of hard-working, tax-paying workers in our nation.

If passed into law, President Bush's plan would permit undocumented foreign nationals to obtain temporary worker status for three years and be eligible for lawful permanent residency through existing employment-based channels. The three-year status would only be renewable once, for a total of six years of temporary status. Under the plan, a person must be an undocumented foreign national with a job at the time of applying for the visa, or a person abroad with a job offer, in order to obtain the temporary worker status. Undocumented foreign nationals will be required to pay a one-time penalty to apply. There will be a system in place for U.S. employers to seek U.S. workers before the nonimmigrant will be granted temporary worker status. If the nonimmigrant loses his/her job, does not follow the terms of the status, or breaks the law, s/he will be required to leave the U.S. Employers are required to inform the U.S. government when a temporary worker starts and ends employment with that employer in what sounds similar to a SEVIS plan for temporary workers. Employers will also be subject to tough enforcement and penalties for hiring undocumented immigrants after the program starts.

Though temporary workers will be permitted to seek lawful permanent resident status, they will be given financial incentives to return to their home countries at the end of their nonimmigrant status. The Administration is attempting to work with other countries to have the temporary workers receive retirement credits in their respective home countries for the time that they work in the United States. President Bush also referred to tax preferred savings accounts as a possibility where the person would obtain the money in the savings account upon his or her departure from the U.S.

The President also emphasized that this is not an amnesty program and that no one holding temporary work status would have preferential treatment in obtaining a green card or citizenship. Even though there is no special treatment, his plan includes increasing the number of immigrant visas available in employment-based (EB) cases each year. Currently, the limit is 140,000 for all EB categories combined.

The immigration changes may not end with temporary workers and lawful permanent residents. The President has asked for a review of the citizenship test administered to individuals seeking naturalization to ensure that it meets his high expectations for new citizens. This may mean that the test will become even more difficult in the future. Previous studies have shown that the civics portion of the exam is already complex enough that many U.S. citizens would have difficulty passing.

President Bush has asked Congress to pass laws that support the plan he described in his speech. This means that, while the President is supportive of the concept of providing legalization opportunities, he has no definite commitment to any particular legislation at this time.

Both pro-immigration and anti-immigration supporters have criticized the Bush proposal. The pro-immigration lobby believes that the proposal has no teeth to it and has no force of law. It only provides for a temporary work permit and does not go far enough in recognizing that millions of workers and their families expect to become permanent residents or green card holders in the United States. The anti-immigration lobby believes that the timing of the legislation is simply to pander to Hispanic voters in an election year, that we are opening the floodgates to those who break the law, and that we need to build a wall around the U.S. and make it impenetrable for anyone to enter our country.

Our analysis is that this proposal has two major advantages. First, it acknowledges that we have a problem in the United States, with somewhere between 8 and 14 million undocumented workers who are here at the behest of U.S. employers, needing and using their services. It is an acknowledgement of an economic and social reality in this country. The other advantage of this proposal is that, for the first time since 9/11, it has been clearly recognized that immigrants are not synonymous with terrorists; that an overwhelming majority of those who have entered our country have done so simply to provide a better life for themselves and their loved ones. By providing them with some sort of legal status, we can actually track them better and allow them to enjoy the benefit of our minimum wage and the protection of other laws.

Many political experts and pundits are calling this move an election year attempt to obtain a greater share of the Hispanic vote, of which Bush carried only 35% in the 2000 election. In 2003, the total Hispanic population in the U.S. surpassed that of the African American population. This may not be the entire basis for President Bush's decision, as he was moving towards a similar plan in the months proceeding September 11, 2001, and this plan could lose some support for him in his own party. His motives, however, are irrelevant as long as he signs positive, effective legalization legislation in the coming months. Until such a law is passed and funding made available, the commitments stated on January 7, 2004 will neither carry the force of law nor assist those who are currently unlawfully present in the United States.