Bush unveils plan for guest workers: Pakistanis likely beneficiaries
By Our Correspondent
WASHINGTON, May 16: President George W. Bush has announced an immigration plan which will allow guest workers from countries like Pakistan to come to the US on visas sponsored by American companies and opens the door to US citizenship for some of the 11.5 million illegal aliens living in the country.
“All elements of this problem must be addressed together – or none of them will be solved at all,” said Mr Bush in a nationally televised 17-minute address to the nation on Monday night.
Speaking from the Oval Office, the US president outlined an immigration plan that combines stricter immigration control with concession for some of illegal aliens already living in the country.
Insisting that he is not offering amnesty to illegal immigrants, a proposal unpopular among most Americans, Mr Bush said: “It is a way for those who have broken the law to pay their debt to society and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen.”
Guest workers, who will be hired in the same way as workers are employed in the Middle East, will not have the right to US citizenship and will have to return home after completing their contract period. However, unlike in the Middle East, children born to guest workers in the United States will automatically become US citizens.
Mr Bush’s plan has another element which will directly but adversely affect immigrants from countries like Pakistan as it proposes terminating the current catch-and-release policy by the end of this year. Under the current policy, many non-Mexican illegal aliens are released pending a court date. This allows the aliens, particularly those who overstay their visas, to stay and work until their cases are decided, which sometimes takes years.
The proposed policy will require them to stay in custody while their cases are heard and they will be forcibly deported if the decision goes against them. This will force a large number of non-Mexican illegal immigrants to return home as in most such cases US courts do order deportation.
The path-to-citizenship, presented in President Bush’s address, is different from the amnesty previous US governments had offered. An amnesty allowed the illegal immigrants who had been in the US for a certain period of time to apply for citizenship. The period of their stay has not yet been specified.
President Bush’s proposal will create a right to citizenship for some illegal aliens but each case will be separately examined by the administration which will be decided whether that person qualifies for citizenship.
This will allow the administration to screen out a large number of applicants and will be particularly harmful for immigrants from Muslim countries who can be rejected and sent home on the slightest possibility of even the remotest link to an activity that can be interpreted as threatening US security.
President Bush’s plan also calls for tighter control on the US border with Mexico as an overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants comes from that country.
To deal with the problem, the president has suggested assigning 6,000 National Guard troops to perform surveillance and intelligence duties along the US-Mexico border. It also proposes increasing border patrol and recruiting thousands of new agents to patrol the border.
The immigration debate has been raging on Capitol Hill since December, when the House of Representatives passed legislation declaring illegal residence in this country an act of felony.
A bill being considered in the Senate sharply differs from President Bush’s guest workers plan. If enacted, it would allow guest workers also to become US citizens, which the president’s plan denies to them.
