What the President should say about immigration but won't - Part 3 - Amnesty

Immigrant Supporters To Counter Bush Speech:
"The We Are America Alliance of 41 immigrant resource groups, unions, churches, day laborers and Spanish-language disc jockeys opposes House legislation that would criminalize illegal immigrants, but it will lobby Congress and compromise to realize its goal of obtaining legal residency for many of the 11 million people who live in the shadows.
"But like the president, whose proposal for a guest-worker program is opposed by many in his own party, the alliance does not speak for all. It is being criticized by a small but influential faction of Latino activists in Los Angeles who say the alliance's compromise strategy could slow the momentum created by the protests."

This Washington Post story deals with what it portrays as a fissure among the pro-amnesty forces. My take on it is that they all want the same thing - total amnesty for all those here illegally - but they need a perception that there is a "moderate" wing to the movement to improve their ability to get amnesty for most, if not all, the current illegals now and the rest later.

Despite the unpopularity of amnesty with the American people, the President continues to make it the centerpiece of his "reform" plan. He adds another, somewhat less unpopular, idea which he refers to (disingenuously, I believe) as "guest workers" and then offers a pledge to tighten border security over several years.

News Flash for President Bush - We conservatives went down this road with Ronald Reagan whom we loved, respected and trusted. Several million illegal immigrants got amnesty, but the promised improvements in border security never materialized. Mr. Bush, we learned a bitter lesson 20 years ago and we won't be fooled again. We don't love you or trust you the way we did Reagan and we don't have any confidence that you would be able to deliver on any promise to secure the border. Maybe if you had made that a priority after 9/11 and we now had the planned fence complete and a Border Patrol about 20 to 50 percent bigger than it is today, we might be more receptive to your pleas. But you only have less than three years left and your popularity is so low the next guy in the White House is likely to be a Democrat, so we aren't inclined to give up something now for a promise of something in the future.