Bush, GOP senators have new proposal, but it’s still amnesty

The Bush administration and some Senate Republicans have a new immigration proposal circulating the press as a PowerPoint presentation. It favors a circuitous path that would be open to almost all illegal aliens, but includes higher financial penalties for illegal aliens who want to remain in the United States.

The proposal would bar many illegal aliens from collecting Social Security benefits based on work performed while illegal, and would prohibit future guest workers from bringing their families. It would also, for the first time, accept specific 'triggers,' including stepped-up enforcement, that must be met before legalization and guest-worker plans go into effect.

One trigger calls for 370 miles of fencing, 200 miles of vehicle barriers and 300 miles of electronic monitoring on the border. But in 2006, 850 miles of border fence were authorized. Referring to the 2006 legislation, Rep. Duncan Hunter, (R-CA) said, “I drafted that bill. It says 'shall.' That's the same language we put in the border fence in San Diego, Doggone it, this is the law. Follow the law.”

A spokesman for Rep. Brian P. Bilbray, (R-CA), Chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, said of the new proposal 'It's still amnesty. With all of the window-dressing provisions that are here, at the end of the day the end result is the same: You are giving specialized status and a mechanism for [illegal aliens] to stay here indefinitely, which is an amnesty.'