Don't Forget the Bush Amnesty
William Norman Grigg
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Stop the FTAA, January 8, 2004
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"Amnesty" is related to the word "amnesia," and both words refer to forgetfulness: Amnesty for a crime means that it is officially forgotten. President Bush and his supporters anxiously insist that the administration's immigration "reform" proposal does not amount to a general amnesty for illegal immigrants. But the Bush Plan -- whatever euphemism it may be swaddled in -- is unmistakably an amnesty for illegal aliens. And Americans should neither forget nor forgive the administration for this arrogant, cynical betrayal of our nation.
For more than two years, The New American magazine has been warning of the Bush administration's impending betrayal of our borders. In our most recent issue, Senior Editor William F. Jasper warned:
"The Bush administration and pro-immigration invasion Democrats and Republicans
in Congress are planning a big move this year to give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens now residing in the United States. President Bush and his counterpart in Mexico, President Vicente Fox, were forced to put this scheme on hold in 2001, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Now the plan is back, along with a multitude of connected initiatives to deluge the U.S. with waves of legal immigrants, `refugees,' `temporary workers' and your standard variety of illegal alien border jumpers."
The proposal announced by President Bush on January 7th is the first installment of the subversive scheme Mr. Jasper described. Under the Bush Plan, illegal immigrants would pay a one-time fee to acquire a renewable 3-year work permit. Supposedly, the newly legalized "guest workers" would return to their home countries after the permits expire.
However, the plan would also extend to the formerly illegal immigrants all of the benefits enjoyed by American citizens and legal resident aliens. This would allow the newly "legal" immigrants to establish themselves here and begin the process of "chain immigration," through which untold millions of new immigrants would be brought in. This is what happened with the most recent immigration amnesty in 1986.
According to President Bush, "The citizenship line … is too long, and our current limits on legal immigration are too low." Neither of these statements is true. America presently welcomes more legal immigrants than the rest of the western nations combined. And as reporter Georgie Anne Geyer documented in her 1996 study Americans No More, the process of naturalization is easier and faster than at any previous era in our nation's history.
And this doesn't take into account the huge and expanding illegal immigrant population, which is estimated to be anywhere from eight to twenty million. Many of them are pregnant mothers who cross the border from Mexico to have children who acquire U.S. citizenship at birth. As immigration analyst Steve Sailer points out, the 1986 amnesty "set off a big baby boom among its beneficiaries -- inevitably worsening the subsequent crowding in schools and emergency rooms."
What's the Purpose?
The January 8th New York Times editorially praised the Bush amnesty as a "prelude" to a larger effort to reform our immigration system: "For simply reopening what has always been a torturous debate in this country, the president deserves applause. He has recognized that the nation's immigration system is, as he put it, `broken.'" But the unspoken purpose of the process the Bush Plan would inaugurate is to demolish what remains of our immigration system, rather than repairing it.
The invited audience for President Bush's White House announcement included representatives from various "citizen groups," such as the Hispanic Alliance for Progress, the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans, the Latino Coalition, and the League of United Latin American Citizens. The address itself served as an overture for a hastily called "Summit of the Americas" in Monterrey, Mexico. These two facts underscore the real purpose of the amnesty proposal: It is a significant step toward the amalgamation of the U.S. with Mexico -- as well as Canada, and eventually every other country in this hemisphere -- into a regional political bloc.
Shortly after taking office, Mr. Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox signed a document called the "Guanajuato Proposal," pledging their governments would "strive to consolidate a North American economic community whose benefits reach the lesser-developed areas of the region and extend to the most vulnerable social groups in our countries."
Within a few months of that declaration, the Mexican government had composed a five-point program to hasten "consolidation" with the U.S.:
- Legalization of "undocumented" workers (that is, illegal aliens from Mexico);
- An expanded permanent visas program;
- An enhanced guest workers visas program;
- Border control cooperation;
- Economic development in immigrant-sending regions of Mexico.
This list of demands, according to Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda, were essentially non-negotiable: He insisted that the U.S. had to accept "the whole enchilada, or nothing." The Bush administration has dutifully worked to meet that nation's demands.
During Fox's 2001 visit to the U.S., the groundwork was liad for the so-called “Partnership for Prosperity” (PfP) — an initiative designed to use American tax dollars to build Mexico’s manufacturing sector. According to the U.S. State Department, PfP’s action plan calls for U.S. assistance -- meaning taxpayer subsidies -- to Mexico to boost investment in housing and commercial infrastructure to boost Mexican productivity. This has the unavoidable effect of drawing manufacturing jobs south of the border -- even as low-wage jobs are increasingly snapped up by illegal immigrants (pardon me -- future guest workers) surging northward.
The Bush administration's indecent eagerness to eradicate our southern border and consolidate our nation with Mexico was noted by Newsweek political analyst Howard Fineman. “Whatever else George W. Bush does, or doesn’t do, he has earned a place in history as the first American president to place Hispanic voters at the center of politics, and the first to view the land between Canada and Guatemala as one," noted Fineman. "It makes sense, if you think about it: Texas, long ago and far away, was part of Mexico. Now a Texan is trying to reassemble the Old Country, and then some."
“The ultimate goal of any White House policy ought to be a North American economic and political alliance similar in scope and ambition to the European Union,” opined an Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial on September 7, 2001. “Unlike the varied landscapes and cultures of European Union members, the United States, Canada and Mexico already share a great deal in common, and language is not as great a barrier. President Bush, for example, is quite comfortable with the blended Mexican-Anglo culture forged in the border states of Texas, California and Arizona.”
President Bush has only offered oblique hints of the agenda that Fineman correctly described. Mexican President Fox has been more candid.
During a May 16, 2002 speech in Madrid, Fox boasted: “In the last few months we have managed to achieve an improvement in the situation of many Mexicans in [the United States], regardless of their migratory status, through schemes that have permitted them access to health and education systems, identity documents, as well as the full respect for their human rights." Here Fox referred to the incremental legalization of illegal Mexican immigrants achieved when various state and local governments began to accept marticula consular cards as official ID. Those cards, which are easily counterfeited, are issued to Mexicans in this country irrespective of their legal status as a way of giving them access to employment, health benefits, and -- in some states, such as California -- driver's licenses.
In the Madrid speech, Fox explained that demolishing the distinction between legal and illegal Mexican immigrants is necessary in order to advance the merger of the U.S. and Mexico: “Eventually our long-range objective is to establish with the United States, but also with Canada, our other regional partner, an ensemble of connections and institutions similar to those created by the European Union, with the goal of attending to future themes [such as] the future prosperity of North America, and the movement of capital, goods, services, and persons.”
Patient Persistence
Amnesty for illegal aliens would almost certainly have been announced long ago were it not for 9-11 -- an event that demonstrated, in a tragic and lethal fashion, the mortal danger resulting from the failure to secure our borders.
However, merger-minded elites in both the U.S. and Mexico regrouped and continued their campaign for amnesty. Last Fall, a coalition of radical groups -- including the Communist Party -- organized the "Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride." That campaign brought busloads of illegal aliens to Washington to lobby on behalf of amnesty.
Vicente Fox did his part by visiting three southwestern states -- Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico -- to lobby state legislatures to support the amnesty drive. "We share nation and language," Fox told the New Mexico legislature. "In addition to our geographical vicinity, we are united by inseparable bonds, history, values and interests…. We must join together…. You need Mexico and Mexicans, and we need you."
Acting as the supposed leader of "Mexicans living abroad" (a group that, according to the Mexican government, includes Americans of Mexican ancestry born in this country), Fox demanded that lawmakers in this country "facilitate access to health care and education services for all those who share our border…. Without this, it is impossible to think about the path to greater integration and shared prosperity."
Open borders, amnesty for illegals, subsidies for Mexico's economy, exporting manufacturing capacity south of the border, expanded welfare benefits for foreigners who entered our nation illegally -- these are all part of the same seamless design. As Fox himself put it, that design is the "integration" of the U.S. and Mexico into a hemisphere-wide political unit.
Many observers believe that the Bush Amnesty Plan is part of a political strategy aimed at courting the Hispanic vote -- which would be a shockingly cynical and opportunistic venture. But the truth is even worse: President Bush is consciously betraying our nation by undermining our borders, our sovereignty, and the integrity of our laws. And he is doing this as part of a campaign that will -- if successful -- result in an end to our national independence and our constitutional order.
Americans must not accept this incredible betrayal -- we must not allow it to be consummated.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
- Contact your Congressman and demand that he oppose any amnesty proposal
- Urge your friends, neighbors, and co-workers to do the same
- Learn more about the "Free Trade Area of the Americas" (FTAA), the deceptively named program to create a hemisphere-spanning socialist superstate
- Join in the effort to prevent implementation of the FTAA pact, which is scheduled to be completed next year
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