This proposal makes good sense, economically and politically.

I'll bet we'll see alot of these shirts in Florida!

NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 8:28 p.m. ET Jan. 07, 2004

WASHINGTON - President Bush called for a major overhaul of America’s immigration system Wednesday to grant legal status to millions of undocumented workers in the United States, saying the current program was not working.

“Out of common sense and fairness, our laws should allow willing workers to enter our country and fill jobs that Americans are not filling,” the president said in an address in the East Room to members of Congress, his Cabinet and immigrant advocacy groups.

Critics of the plan said it amounted to an amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Bush’s election-year proposal is designed to help meet the needs of U.S. employers and to woo Latino voters.

“As a nation that values immigrants and depends on immigrants, we should have immigration laws that work and make us proud,” the president said. “Yet today we do not. Instead we see many employers turning to the illegal labor market. We see millions of hard-working men and women condemned to fear and insecurity in a massive undocumented economy."

“Illegal entry across our borders makes more difficult the urgent task of securing the homeland,” he said.
Bush said his proposals, if enacted by Congress, would provide a more compassionate system for immigrants who now live in the shadows of U.S. society.

“Decent, hard-working people will now be protected by labor laws with the right to change jobs, earn fair wages and enjoy the same working conditions that the law requires for American workers,” the president said.

The plan would, he said:

Make America safer by giving the government a better idea of who was crossing U.S. borders.

Bolster the economy by meeting employers’ needs for willing low-wage workers.

Fulfill a mandate for compassion by guaranteeing the rights and legitimacy of illegal workers. Employers would have to pay them the minimum wage and their Social Security taxes.

Provide incentives to entice those workers to go back to their homelands — a nod to conservatives who oppose any reward to those who enter the United States illegally. The incentives include allowing them to collect retirement benefits in their home countries based on Social Security taxes paid in the United States.