Miami – President Bush traveled to the immigrant hub of Miami on Monday to hail the contribution of newcomers to the country and reiterate his call for overhaul of immigration law.
The president joined his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and local entrepreneurs for breakfast at Versailles restaurant, a Little Havana landmark.
“One of the key problems that many of the businesses face here is labor,” the president told reporters afterward. “The unemployment rate is unbelievably low right now, and therefore businesses who are planning for the future are wondering whether or not they’re going to be able to find people to help their businesses expand.”
“I assured them that the administration is still working toward a comprehensive immigration policy that will be rational, that will be able to, one, enforce rule of law, and on the other hand, be compassionate about how this country treats people,” Bush said, recounting his remarks to the business leaders.
“I assured them, as well, that we will continue to work to keep taxes low. It’s very interesting, you know, when an entrepreneur gets their business started they want to keep more of their own money so they can expand,” he added.
Among the local participants in the Versailles event were Jose Lagos, president of the Honduran organization Unidad Hondureña, and Nora Sandigo, who heads the Nicaraguan group Fraternidad Nicaragüense.
“We expressed to the president our support for his efforts to have Congress approve a comprehensive immigration reform, and for his economic policy, which includes the trade treaty with the countries of Central America,” Lagos said, referring in the last instance to the accord known as CAFTA.
Bush’s insistence on an immigration overhaul that includes a guest-worker program and a path to legalization for at least some undocumented immigrants faces its strongest opposition from members of his own party, as Republicans in the House of Representatives are unwilling to vote for anything that smacks of an “amnesty.”
The administration wants to see a package that includes greater border security, stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws and a guest-worker program.
But the bill passed by the House last December focuses solely on stiffer enforcement. It envisions the construction of hundreds of miles of additional barriers along the border with Mexico and makes no provision for legalizing any of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants now living in the United States.
The Senate, conversely, approved in May a bipartisan compromise that includes guest-worker programs and which would provide ways for millions of undocumented immigrants to obtain legal residence.
House Republicans, instead of sitting down with senators in a conference committee to reconcile the two bills, decided to hold public hearings around the country – many of them in border cities – that appear to be aimed at justifying their opposition to the immigrant-friendly measures approved by the upper chamber.
The Republican and Democratic lawmakers who crafted the compromise in the Senate accuse their House colleagues of engaging in delaying tactics with the goal of torpedoing genuine immigration reform.
President Bush, in a speech Monday morning at a Coast Guard command station in the Port of Miami, said that comprehensive immigration reform is necessary “to keep the (American) dream alive.”
He argued that any reform must include a guest-worker program, while rejecting what he characterized as the extremes of amnesty or mass deportation in dealing with the undocumented immigrants already in the United States.
“What must work is a rational middle ground that says, you can pay a fine, you can learn English, you can prove you’ve been a lawful citizen, and then you can get in the citizenship line – but at the back of the line, not the front of the line,” Bush said.
