Bush Proposes Legal Status for Immigrant Labor

Opponents derided Bush's proposal as an "amnesty," a politically charged term that causes conservatives to recoil. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.), a member of the House subcommittee that would consider the bill, said it "amounts to the forgiveness of a criminal act, no different under the law than printing hundred-dollar bills in your garage."

Bush said in his remarks that he opposes "amnesty, placing undocumented workers on the automatic path to citizenship." The White House said the plan is not an amnesty because it is temporary and does not lead to a green card, or lawful permanent residency.

Bush said in the future, enforcement would be stepped up against companies that hire illegal workers.

"Our homeland will be more secure when we can better account for those who enter our country, instead of the current situation in which millions of people are unknown to the law," he said. "Law enforcement will face fewer problems with undocumented workers and will be better able to focus on the true threats to our nation from criminals and terrorists."

Business groups, made up of some of Bush's biggest financial backers, welcomed the plan as a way to create a stable workforce and alleviate labor shortages for low-wage and dangerous jobs that Americans disdain in agriculture and the hotel, health, restaurant and construction industries.

"We have a problem with projected job growth and a diminishing workforce, and the economy can't expand unless we have workers to fill available jobs," said Randy Johnson, vice president for labor and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Advocates for immigrants complained that Bush's proposal does not provide an automatic route for temporary workers to become citizens and said it was designed instead as a path to deportation after the expiration of a worker's temporary legal status.

"We're going to be creating, under this type of legislation, a large number of basically indentured servants," said Susan F. Martin, an immigration expert at Georgetown University who was executive director of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, a government panel that examined the issue in the 1990s. She called Bush's plan "as troubling an immigration proposal as I've seen in the past 25 years."

Martin said the program was unlikely to persuade immigrants to go home when their guest-worker visas expired, especially those who have spent years in the United States.

Even some immigration officials privately expressed concerns about how the new system would be administered, noting there is a backlog of 5.5 million people who have applied for immigration benefits.

Bush's plan is similar to legislation introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who said in a telephone interview that the president should use his State of the Union address this month to set a deadline for Congress to act before the August recess. "I worry about it just being an issue that is talked about, when we need to act," he said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said in Mexico that he is confident an immigration plan will make it through Congress "because it is a security issue."

But a House leadership aide said that at least 50 Republicans would be unlikely to vote for such a measure, and most Democrats would probably reject it to avoid giving Bush a victory during his reelection campaign.

Bush told the East Room audience that many undocumented workers had "entrusted their lives to the brutal rings of heartless human smugglers" only to be cut off from their families as they lived in "the shadows of American life -- fearful, often abused and exploited."

"As a nation that values immigration, and depends on immigration, we should have immigration laws that work and make us proud, yet today we do not," Bush said. "The system is not working. Our nation needs an immigration system that serves the American economy, and reflects the American dream."

Correspondent Kevin Sullivan in Mexico City and staff writers Mary Beth Sheridan and Greg Schneider in Washington contributed to this report.