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Guestworker Programs: Do They Make Sense for America?

WASHINGTON -- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has just circulated his version of a bill to establish a vast guestworker program that would legalize millions of illegal aliens and import an unlimited number of additional workers from abroad, in addition to unprecedented increases in legal immigration. Its passage would set the stage for a conflict with the House of Representatives, which approved a comprehensive enforcement measure in December.

Supporters of a guestworker program need to answer some important questions: * Is the Department of Homeland Security capable of properly administering such a program? * What can past legalization and guestworker programs, both here and abroad, teach us? * What will be the cost to taxpayers of importing more unskilled workers and their families, and legalizing those here illegally (thus making them eligible for more government services)? * Is the American economy truly reliant upon the labor of foreign workers? * Is there no way other than legalization to address the problem of 12 million illegal aliens? To assess these and other questions at the very start of the Senate's guestworker deliberations, the Center for Immigration Studies will sponsor a panel discussion featuring leading experts on the economics and administration of U.S. immigration policy.

The luncheon panel will convene on Friday, March 3, in the Murrow Room of the National Press Club at 12 noon, and include: * Bill King, former head of the Border Patrol Academy and administrator of the 1986 illegal-alien amnesty on the West Coast * Philip Martin, professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Davis, and former member of the Commission on Agricultural Workers * Steven Camarota, Director of Research, Center for Immigration Studies * Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies.

Center for Immigration Studies 1522 K St. NW, Suite 820 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076 center@cis.org www.cis.org
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Okay, shoot me for saying this but in the name of all that's holy can we ask the people who are simply dying to come here to please learn the language. America assimilated the Germans, the Irish, the Italians, countless Asian societies, and the list goes on and on. They became Americans. It's wonderful for people to have a fond remembrance of their roots but there has never been a society that has lasted once the people within it could not friggin understand one another. Whenever I traveled I made damn sure that there was a translator available for a language I was not proficient with...out of RESPECT for the culture and people I was visiting. If I want to live in France then I learn French. Same with Germany or Italy or Spain. Hell, I even learned to speak Australian, so please now; welcome aboard if you follow our laws and are willing to become Americans. That means speaking the English language.

Please.

In NYC you can take the driving exam in 133 languages, and they'll find a coach for you if yours isn't on the list. Have ANY idea what that costs? Should we tax those who place an undo burden on the system? I go to the VA office and there's a copier 10' from the guys desk and he tells me to go home and make copies or they'll charge me for doing so there. Same with the fax machine. And I understand this. I don't WANT to be a strain on the system, or be seen as someone who can't seem to do a bloody thing for himself. Needing help is all well and good but sweet mother of pearl the madness must stop somewhere.

Is it asking too much for someone to pitch-in rather than asked to be propped-up?