Bush's Immigration Speech: Only Ted Kennedy Is Happy

Posted on May 16, 2006

President Bush's immigration speech last night pleased absolutely no one: except for Ted Kennedy, who gushed on CNN about how much he loves the guest worker program. Too bad that neither his -- nor any other senator's --constituents have the least bit of love for the amnesty program.

The speech was full of the usual platitudes such as:

"We are a nation of immigrants" (no we're not, the vast majority of us were born here, our ancestors were legal immigrants, which has absolutely nothing to do with a sovereign country's rights to control its own borders);

"We are a nation of laws" (not so you'd notice, corporations are almost never fined for hiring illegal aliens);

"Illegal immigrants are good people" (This one is so absurd it's hard to respond to. Some are good people, some are not, as is true for any large group of humans regardless of race, ethnicity or religion. None of which has anything to do with the idea of securing the borders and having a fair, controllable, orderly immigration system.)

"Illegal immigrants do the jobs that Americans won't do." (This one is an insult to working class Americans, who will do any job that pays a fair and livable wage. But large corporations want illegal immigrants so they can exploit them, pay slave wages and no benefits, and thereby depress normal wages for American workers. Mexican American labor activist Cesar Chavez was extremely opposed to illegal immigration because he said it depressed wages for legal immigrant workers in the U.S.)
Other than Ted Kennedy, no one is pleased with the speech -- on the left or the right. And sending 6,000 unarmed National Guard troops to make coffee for the Border Patrol is ineffective at best. It also depletes the states of the manpower they need in a crisis. Here's a better idea: finish hiring the 2,000 Border Patrol agents required by the law passed by Congress and get them to the borders (so far only 210 have been hired by the White House). After the borders are secure, then we can talk about what do to with the 20 million illegal immigrants that are currently living in the U.S.