Cornyn bill a thinly disguised amnesty
Monday, July 28, 2003
By: Dan Stein

Dallas Morning News

If truth is the first casualty of war, then linguistic clarity is the first casualty of service in Washington. We all remember how Bill Clinton tested the semantic outer limits of the English language over the definition of the word "is." Texas Sen. John Cornyn has been in town only a little more than six months, and already he's bending and stretching definitions in new and imaginative ways.

Sen. Cornyn's new bill, "The Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2003," which is introduced on July 10, is ostensibly a program to bring additional foreign guest workers to the US. And not "an amnesty program, nor a path to citizenship" for illegal aliens, he states categorically.

Reading a bit further on in a bill summary put out by his office, one finds that illegal aliens already living in the U.S. will be eligible for guest worker status, and that "a worker in the program is absolved of all prior illegal behavior relating to their immigration status."

In addition, "Any guest worker employed less than three years or [who] has violated the terms of the program is prohibited from adjusting their immigration status to permanent residence."

OK. The bill is not an amnesty program for illegal aliens, but illegal immigrants are eligible to apply, and if they remain in the program for more than three years they will be able to adjust their immigration status and obtain permanent residence in the United States.

However creatively Mr. Cornyn wants to define it, most people who have a passing familiarity with the English language will conclude that what he is proposing sounds very much like an amnesty program with a three-year "apprenticeship" provision added on. Whether legal permanent residence kicks in immediately, or after three years, any bill that turns illegal aliens into citizens is an amnesty.

In addition to being linguistically out of touch with the rest of the nation, Mr. Cornyn demonstrates timing that indicates he has very quickly lost touch with the economic realities of the country. The introduction of his new guest worker proposal comes exactly one week after the Labor Department released data that show U.S. unemployment at the highest levels since 1994, and the economy shedding jobs at an alarming pace - 913,000 in the past four months.

Why exactly do we need a new guest worker program with unemployment on the rise and more than 9 million Americans officially out of work? Moreover, the guest workers who are likely to enter as a result of the Cornyn bill will compete directly with the segment of the U.S. labor force that has been hurt the most by the lingering economic slump.

Even in the economic boom years of the late 1990s there was no evidence of a shortage of workers at the lower-skill end of the labor market. Real wages for most blue-collar workers remained stagnant or even declined during the periods of lowest unemployment in recent memory. Certainly there is even less justification today for a new guest worker program, much less one that also includes a (conditional) amnesty program.

The Cornyn guest worker/amnesty bill is part of an ongoing pursuit of cheap labor. Whether it is favorable tax breaks for companies that outsource American jobs to workers overseas, or programs to bring foreign workers to do jobs that have to be done in this country, cheap labor has become the dominant interest of many politicians in Washington.

A new guest worker/amnesty program may benefit the short-term interest of some business and ethnic advocacy groups, but it is a very shortsighted sacrifice that will harm many American workers and strain the social bonds of this country. The legitimate goal of remaining competitive in a global economy cannot be served by undermining the middle-class workers who form the backbone of this country.

No amount of semantic acrobatics can change reality. A program that will allow an undetermined number of illegal aliens to gain legal residence - either immediately, or three years hence - is an amnesty. A program that will bring in untold numbers of guest workers at a time when 9 million Americans are unemployed is just a way for employers to cut labor costs. It is what it is - and most of us understand the definition of "is."