Dan Stein Illegal Quotations

Millions of American workers, in all sectors of the labor market, have seen their jobs and wages undercut by the phenomenon of mass illegal immigration.

But there is not much hope for Americans in blue-collar work being able to hold their jobs if the guest worker proposal is adopted. Concerned citizens will not have much hope that today's illegal workers will leave the country after being given six-year work permits, and they will simply have to hope that there is still a middle class in a few years. President Bush also talked about 'stronger immigration enforcement and border protection,' and we might hope that after decades of broken promises that this time he really means it, but the record does not justify much hope.

Overcrowded, multilingual, schools will not become manageable because the kids are suddenly the children of guest workers, instead of illegal aliens. Millions of unskilled laborers will not magically become high-earning taxpayers because they have work visas. State budget crises will not be alleviated, housing will not become more affordable, traffic will not become less congested, and middle class jobs will not become more plentiful if we give everyone who is here, or who wants to come here, a piece of paper that says they're legal.

Rather than creating conditions that allow American workers to fill jobs at higher wages, what the president is proposing merely converts low wage illegal aliens into low wage workers with visas. Our economy would have to adapt if the influx of cheap foreign labor is ended, but that is an adjustment strongly desired by a majority of Americans, whether native-born or foreign-born. The concept that our economy must be served by a permanent under-class of foreign guest workers is reprehensible and unacceptable.

In other words, the illegal aliens will get about 95 percent of what they want immediately and simply have to wait several years for the rest, but President Bush, Senators McCain and Kennedy, and others want us to believe that this is not amnesty.