News Article Thread - 1

[virtual55]

Bush Begins Push for Immigration Deal With Congress

By Jim VandeHei and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 25, 2006; Page A04

IRVINE, Calif., April 24 -- Under pressure from Republicans to play a bigger role in the immigration debate, President Bush will begin meeting key lawmakers Tuesday to help forge a bipartisan agreement by Memorial Day to offer some undocumented workers a path to citizenship.

But White House aides emphasized that Bush has no intention for now of staking clear legislative positions on the immigration bill. He does not want to embrace a proposal, only to see it lose once House and Senate negotiators try to reach a final agreement, whose prospects are still seen as remote on Capitol Hill.



Speaking in Orange County, Calif., President Bush urged passage of immigration laws. Aides said Bush would like a bill by Memorial Day. (By Ric Francis -- Associated Press)

Video
Bush Pushes Temporary Worker Program
President Bush was in California Monday and said he wants an immigration law that would give temporary guest worker permits to foreigners in low paying jobs while strengthening border security.


Bush Administration
Bush Begins Push for Immigration Deal With Congress
Bush Admits Mistakes in Iraq, Defends Tactics
Cost of Gas Puts Pressure On GOP


Transcript
President Bush Speaks on Immigration Reform
Read a transcript of the remarks President Bush delivered this afternoon on immigration reform.


The Immigration Debate
Immigration reform proposals before Congress have sparked a nationwide political debate.


» Special Report: Full Coverage
» Map: A Widespread Issue

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For a president eager to show he still wields power in Washington, the immigration issue is looming ever larger. Beyond a few smaller energy and science proposals, legislation to tighten the nation's borders, address the 12 million illegal immigrants already here and offer new avenues for legal employment for immigrants may be the only major domestic initiative still attainable for Bush this year.

Speaking here to the Orange County Business Council, in a region where the competing arguments about immigration are in constant tension, Bush rebuked those who believe the answer is sending illegal immigrants back home.

"Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic. It's just not going to work," Bush said, while anti-immigration demonstrators chanted outside the hotel. "You can hear people out there hollering it's going to work. It's not going to work."

As Bush's comments suggested, the issue has left his party deeply divided between conservatives who favor a bill that only clamps down on illegal immigration, and others who believe any immigration legislation must maintain a supply of low-cost labor for an economy dependent on it. A compromise forged in the Senate this month is locked in a procedural stalemate, even though it appears a clear bipartisan majority supports it.

"The president . . . has to get involved in immigration right now," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), an architect of the compromise.

But beyond general calls for a comprehensive approach to the immigration issue, Bush has refused to say exactly what he wants in a bill. In his speech to the business council, he again stopped short of endorsing a particular bill. Instead, he spoke favorably of components of the middle-of-the-road approach that Specter and the bipartisan group of senators are pursuing.

The president called the Senate group's idea of allowing illegal immigrants an easier path to citizenship the longer they have been here an "interesting approach" that Congress must debate. Work visas should be temporary, he said, but "the definition of temporary will be decided in halls of Congress."

To Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a co-author of the compromise, Bush's statements amounted to an endorsement of the bill at a critical time. Other Democrats -- and many Republicans -- were not so sure.

"I had hoped that the president would finally weigh in and exert some leadership, but that did not happen again today," said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.).

A senior aide said Bush -- after private discussions with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) -- is trying to push Republicans for a compromise before Memorial Day that does not alienate either his party's conservative base or the fast-growing Latino community.

Tuesday's meeting will be heavy on senators favoring the Senate compromise, including Frist, Specter and John McCain (R-Ariz.), Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), Kennedy, Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.).

Of those invited, only Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has not endorsed the plan. In contrast, its most vociferous opponents, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), will not be there.

But Bush is resisting pressure from members to take the lead hands-on role in cementing a congressional compromise, aides said. The White House first wants to see if the Senate can strike a bipartisan agreement on its own. Bush does not want to be seen as interjecting himself prematurely while the legislative debate remains fluid.

Bush's strategy, said aides, is to press for a Senate deal and step up his personal involvement to get the House to agree to its parameters. Many House leaders, including Hastert, have told Bush they are open to softening the bill they passed in December and allowing illegal immigrants a road to citizenship, as long as it includes stiff financial penalties and back taxes for illegal immigrants who seek lawful work papers, and strong border enforcement. White House advisers see the debate playing out like previous ones over Medicare and tax cuts, in which Bush allows Congress a lot of leeway and then comes in at the end to help secure a deal -- and claim credit.

White House officials consider the next few months critical to Bush's domestic agenda. With the budget season in full swing, Congress will also consider new spending for math and science training and other components of the president's "competitiveness initiative," a centerpiece of Bush's 2006 wish list.

The House and Senate will also debate Bush-backed plans to provide new incentives for production and use of domestic fuel sources such as ethanol and hydrogen. The energy debate is moving to the top of the agenda with gasoline prices expected to hold at $3 or more per gallon throughout the summer.

White House aides are scrambling to find new proposals to hold down gas prices and deflect criticism that Bush is doing little to ease consumer pain at the pump. Bush plans to put increasing pressure on companies to prove they are not colluding to drive up prices, though Republican aides concede the move is mostly cosmetic.

All of this must be done with an eye toward holding down overall government spending. Conservative activists have told top officials the chief concern of many Republican voters is not the war or even the rash of scandals but the growth of government under Bush.

A key part of the Bush political recovery plan, which aides hope will result in what they jokingly call a "Bolten bounce," is persuading the Republican Congress to cut spending before the August congressional recess. New White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten has told aides he hopes the addition of former congressman Rob Portman as head of the budget office and other forthcoming changes will help facilitate a willingness to make tough budget cuts.

One key congressional aide will not be leaving, according to White House sources: Candida Perotti Wolff, the head of the legislative affairs office. At a morning meet with top aides, Bolten said that he has full confidence in Wolff and that she will be staying, the sources said. Bolten also reaffirmed his support for White House counsel Harriet Miers, the sources said.

Still, the budget-cutting efforts may prove difficult -- Congress has already rejected Bush's call for trimming entitlement spending. Worried about conservatives sitting out the November elections to protest spending, White House and top congressional officials are planning a summer push for legislation on abortion, same-sex marriage and stem cell research to excite social conservatives. After losing control over policy as part of the White House shake-up, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove is expected to focus intensely on maximizing voter turnout, as he did in the 2004 presidential race.

[abhishek101]

look at this article of US loss in computing contest.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...gn_id=bier_tca

[gonecrazyonh4]

http://www.dailybulletin.com/opinions/ci_3739287

Immigration reforms might favor Asians
ByThomas Elias, Guest Columnist




Keep out most new immigrants – except those needed as cheap labor for essential businesses. That’s the mandate public opinion polls are imposing on Congress this spring as uncertainty reigns over the shape of immigration reform.

Congress is responding. The package now most likely to pass figures to include provisions for vastly expanding fences along some parts of the Mexican border. It will also beef up the Border Patrol. And it will impose time limits on so-called guest workers, compelling them to return home after three or five or six years and stay there awhile before coming back into the United States.

OK, that last one will only apply if it’s enforced, and similar immigration time limits never have been. One other thing is clear: Although there’s nothing in writing, this probable new law would favor Asians over Latin Americans.

It’s not merely that the border fence and the Border Patrol reinforcements plainly aim to stem the steady tide of immigrants flowing daily from Mexico and Central America.

But the law will also likely provide a big increase in the number of “uniquely qualified” guest workers who can come here legally, upping the limit from 65,000 a year to 115,000, with an option of increasing the flow by 20 percent yearly without going back to Congress for permission.

While some baseball and basketball players use this provision to come here, the vast majority of immigrants in this program, called the H1-B plan, come from Asian countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India.

An H1-B increase was eagerly sought by high technology companies and had little trouble getting inserted into several versions of the reform bill amid fears that this country might somehow lose its leadership role in electronics if companies like Intel and Cisco Systems are forced to hire American citizens or permanent legal residents rather than Asian imports. That’s a scare tactic the high tech lobby has used nonstop since the mid-1990s to get ever higher numbers of H1-B visas, which allow foreigners into the United States for six years. They are then supposed to return home for at least one year before applying for a new visa.

Of course, just as with past guest worker programs like the World War II bracero plan that brought in farm workers and lasted into the 1960s, the majority of “guests” end up staying well beyond their term, if not permanently.

So just about all prospective immigration laws figure to set up significant new barriers for unskilled Latino workers who want to come here and take jobs as car washers, strawberry pickers, hotel maids and other positions that even Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist concedes most Americans won’t take at their current pay.

At the same time, the way will likely be eased for tens of thousands more skilled Asian workers to enter and take jobs that several American engineering organizations have long maintained should go to citizens.

The reason high-tech companies push this, according to those groups: Skilled Asians gladly work for significantly lower wages than U.S. citizens. Any new law will also mostly likely set up an F-4 visa class for students getting advanced degrees in science, math, engineering and computer technology.

Upon completing their studies, the students would get permanent residence and eventual citizenship if they pay a $1,000 fee and find a job in their field. No one can be sure what new risks may arise from these new rules which would apply significantly to H1-B and F-4 immigrants originating in countries with large Muslim populations.

What is known is that obscure, existing rules that allow preferred immigration status for clergy serving existing H1-B immigrants have already led to anti-American preaching in mosques across this country.

The radical Islamic imam arrested last year in Lodi for allegedly plotting terrorist acts arrived here on just such a visa. The basic reality, of course, is that guest workers coming in on H1-B visas are as likely to stay on as braceros ever were, and that there is essentially nothing to force either H1-Bs or guest farm workers to leave when their visas expire.

The question: Why should America adopt a law that favors immigrants from countries known to have spawned terrorists, but crack down on immigrants from Latin countries whose citizens have shown no interest at all in terror?

– Thomas Elias writes a syndicated column from Southern California.

[learning01]

May 1 ‘Great American Boycott of 2006’ for immigrant rights gathers momentum
By Sharon Black
Published Apr 22, 2006 12:12 AM

The national call for a May 1 “Great American Boycott of 2006: No Shopping, No School, No Work” to demand full rights for immigrant workers and their families is gathering momentum. This call, initiated by the March 25th Coalition Against HR4437—a grassroots coalition that grew out of the Los Angeles action that brought hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers into the streets last month—has likened the May action to the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott of 1955. Organizers want to exercise both political and economic power on that day.

The call has struck a chord in many immigrant communities. For many immigrant workers May 1 is celebrated in their home countries as a day to commemorate the working class struggle and is marked with marches and rallies worldwide.

LINK

[learning01]

Immigration bill awaits Senate deal

WASHINGTON, April 25 (UPI) -- The new U.S. immigration bill appears to be stuck in Congress until party leaders can cut a deal on it.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is not planning floor time for the massive immigration bill until he can reach an agreement with Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on amendments, CongressDaily reported Monday.

LINK

[learning01]

It's Policies, Not People
Shuffling top advisers can't compensate for an agenda that seems driven more by partisan preferences than by important national needs.
By Robert J. Samuelson
Newsweek
................
The administration's central problem is its policies, not the people executing the policies.
......
the budget, taxes, health care, energy policy and immigration. On all these, the nation has serious business to do. But the administration isn't doing it.
.............
Similarly, unless we curb the flow of poor immigrants, we will inexorably expand the nation's poverty rolls. Bush opposes illegal immigration (who doesn't?) but would legalize many of the same people by reclassifying them as "guest workers." The social consequences would be similar. Bush's notion that most would go home is a fantasy.

LINK at Newsweek.com

[learning01]

Republican wants clearer Bush immigration message

By Donna Smith
Reuters
Tuesday, April 25, 2006; 3:43 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush needs to be more specific about the kind of immigration reform legislation he supports if he hopes to win passage of a new law in an election year, a key Republican senator said on Tuesday.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who supports a bipartisan compromise that stalled in the Senate earlier this month, told reporters Bush should "be specific about what is good ... and what he doesn't like" in the bill.

LINK at WaPo

[learning01]

Senator backs immigration bill
The Des Moines Register
THOMAS BEAUMONT

REGISTER STAFF WRITER
April 25, 2006

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said in Des Moines on Monday that he would push for passage by Memorial Day of comprehensive immigration reform that would allow some people in the United States illegally to stay, despite resistance from conservatives.

"It's a little bit risky, or some people would say it's a little bit risky. But it's not," Frist told The Des Moines Register. "I'm going to make it an issue that captures what is fair, is compassionate, and is right based on the rule of law."

[learning01]

McCain defends Kyl from critics on immigration issue
The Business Journal of Phoenix - 11:10 AM MST Tuesday
by Mike Sunnucks
Sen. John McCain may differ with fellow Sen. Jon Kyl on some key components of the contentious immigration and border debate, but the senior Arizona Republican is defending Kyl from Democratic criticism on the immigration front.

McCain issued a statement in response to recent Democratic criticism and advertisements regarding Kyl's get-tough approach to the immigration problem.

"While Jon Kyl and I have different approaches to immigration reform, we both share the common goal of passing comprehensive immigration reform and believe that a bill should get to the Senate floor for a final vote. I continue to strongly support Jon Kyl and am proud to serve as his campaign chairman," said McCain in a statement.

Kyl sponsored a plan last year requiring the estimated 12 million illegals already in the U.S. to return to their home countries and then apply for legal status. Critics have called such a plan unworkable and too expensive.
.....................

LINK at the business journal of Phoenix

[learning01]

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Immigration reform is up to Senate

JANET NAPOLITANO AND JON HUNTSMAN JR.
GUEST COLUMNISTS

The U.S. Senate returns to work this week with no certainty it will resume debate on comprehensive immigration reform. Western governors strongly urge the Senate to avoid fractious debate and find the middle ground on this critical piece of legislation that a majority of U.S. citizens are demanding.

The Western Governors' Association has offered a solid framework that includes increased border security, employment-based visas, a temporary guest worker program and state reimbursement for enforcement. Our list of priorities is a comprehensive one based in the realities we face every day in our states.
Key elements of our framework include:

• Technology-driven border control

• Reform the visa system and widen our legal labor pool.

The visa system must be streamlined so employers will use it, not shun it. This requires a streamlined process and sufficient numbers of visas to meet U.S. employer demands, especially in the high-tech and biotech industries and seasonal agriculture and hospitality operations.

• A guest worker program without amnesty.

• Address the root causes by engaging with Mexico and Latin America

Western governors call on Congress -- Republican and Democrat -- to not delay and come together to enact immigration reform that will restore our respect for the rule of law and our rich immigrant heritage while preparing our economy and work force for a changing world.

Janet Napolitano is the Democratic governor of Arizona. Jon Huntsman Jr. is the Republican governor of Utah.

From Seattle Post Intelligencer

[jkays94]

Picked this from a blog :

http://ylsqtss.law.yale.edu/qtmedia/...man022206h.mov

If you click on the video link and move the slider to the one-hour mark [about 3/4 way], you'll see a student in a blue button-down shirt stand up and ask a question. In his question, he references Dobbs and asks about "the nativist spirit" and protectionism, asks about the way issues are presented, and whether this is all more about mindset than about policy.

Friedman, three time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of bestsellers "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" and more recently "The World is Flat" (which sold a million and a half copies, far more than Dobbs' viewership -- or ours, by the way), begins his answer. "One of the problems", he begins, explaining that we need leaders who can explain the complexity, not who will just stir the pot, "is we have politicians that are making us stupid, who are throwing sand in our eyes." But then he goes on:

"And then you have a blithering idiot like Lou Dobbs, in my view, who's using the platform of CNN in...the frame of a news show. This is not news. And so we have a political class not making sense of the world for people and that's why the public...is so agitated."

[learning01]

Bush moves to spur movement on immigration bill
BY MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON - Seeking to jumpstart an immigration debate that stalled in the Senate three weeks ago, President Bush on Tuesday summoned senators from both parties to the White House to emphasize his support for a comprehensive reform.

"I strongly believe that we have a chance to get an immigration bill that is comprehensive in nature to my desk before the end of this year," Bush said after meeting with 17 senators immersed in the oft-contentious debate.

Not invited: Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and other conservatives who argue the plan pending in the Senate constitutes amnesty for those who entered the country illegally.

The senators at Tuesday's meeting left pleased but without the main ingredient they'd sought: A presidential endorsement for a pending compromise that would legalize millions of illegal immigrants, toughen border enforcement and create a guest worker program for future migrants.

Some Republicans and Democrats have pressed Bush to flex his muscle in support of the compromise drafted by GOP Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Mel Martinez of Florida. Doing so, they say, would strengthen the Senate's hand when it faces off against House negotiators who laid down a tough marker last year with passage of an enforcement-only bill.

"The president needs to put some of his own political capital down on the table and make it very clear ... that he does not support the House's criminalization bill," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.

While Bush didn't endorse the compromise, Martinez said, "The principles of this bill are clearly what he is for."

Endorsements aside, compromise supporters proclaimed their cause for a comprehensive immigration overhaul was helped by the president's attention to the matter.

"The bottom line is it's doable," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Still, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have yet to address the roadblocks that derailed the measure's passage three weeks ago. They haven't agreed how many amendments can be offered on the Senate floor, nor which Senate negotiators would face off with the House.

One of the most controversial pending amendments, offered by Cornyn and Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, would deny legal status to people convicted of crimes. Democrats argue the amendment is a poison pill that would deny legalization to non-felons.

Frist has pledged to complete action on the immigration bill by Memorial Day, though the Senate now is turning its attention to an emergency spending bill and health care legislation.

As part of the emergency spending bill, Frist has said he will seek to add $2 billion for more Border Patrol agents and increased enforcement. Action on the border money could come as early as Wednesday.

LINK

[learning01]

Senators optimistic on immigration after White House meeting

By MARGARET TALEV
McClatchy Newspapers
April 25, 2006

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of senators emerged from a meeting with President Bush on Tuesday more optimistic than before about the prospects for creating a national guest-worker program and a permanent residency application process for some of the nation's roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants.

"After this meeting, I'm convinced we'll pass immigration reform this year," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said following an hour-long meeting at the White House with the president and more than a dozen senators involved in the debate. Specter predicted Senate passage of an immigration bill by Memorial Day and a final bill, adopted by both chambers of Congress, by the end of the year.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Minority Leader Harry Reid said they still need to work out the rules for Senate debate with their respective caucuses, after a guest-worker bill supported by the Judiciary Committee reached the Senate floor earlier this month only to be stalled by a procedural move. Frist, while wary of any program that amounts to an amnesty, said a full vote would come "in the very near future," and Reid said, "I think we made great progress today."

LINK

[learning01]

Note: There is a separate discussion thread on this news article on its own. I also posted it here in the News Article thread. Guests, join and contribute
learning01, CO

Skilled Immigrants Turn to K Street
High-Tech Workers Awaiting Green Cards Hire Lobbyists, Hit the Hill

By S. Mitra Kalita
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 26, 2006; Page D01

On the December day when Congress killed a budget amendment that might have allowed him to become an American a little sooner, Aman Kapoor started a movement.

He did not march through streets, carry signs, wave a flag from here or there. He did not walk off the job or file out of school. The computer programmer simply went online to a message board tracked by thousands of people in his predicament: highly skilled foreigners waiting years for their green cards.
..............
The group's transformation from an insular circle to a politically active movement offers a window into an alternative immigrant campaign being waged as the Senate this week resumes its work on immigration laws.
..................
members of this high-tech group had their eye on another: a budget reconciliation bill that, in the Senate version, would have allowed those waiting in line for a green card to proceed even if the quota had been exhausted. The provision was cut in conference committee, stirring many to action and leading to the founding of Immigration Voice.
..............

Shilpa Ghodgaonkar was inspired by an e-mail call to action. "I just couldn't keep quiet anymore," she said. She has an MBA but can't work until she gets a green card.

Now the group plans to closely watch the debate resuming in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Earlier this month, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) proposed amendments with all of the group's provisions. Other lawmakers confirm that they are still meeting with the group to hear their concerns.

Immigration Voice leaders say the past few months have focused and politicized Indian immigrants in a way that was not apparent in the past. "There is a very 'Mr. Smith Goes to Washington' quality" about the current effort, Mandapati said. "It's been a journey, a loss of naivete and getting to know about American politics."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Read it in full at WashingtonPost article

[raydhan]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/...ion/index.html