Earlier this month ? and again in his State of the Union address last Tuesday ? President George Bush outlined a proposal for immigration reform. Today on New American Voices, immigrant workers offer their reactions to the President?s proposal.
Many details of the immigration reform proposal remain to be worked out. As it stands, the Department of Homeland Security would operate a temporary worker program, granting temporary work permits to undocumented immigrants already in this country who have a job, or people who want to come to this country and have a concrete job offer. The work permits would be valid for three years and could be renewed, but, the President cautions, would have an end. At that time the workers would be expected to return home, unless they had been approved for citizenship under the existing process. People with temporary work permits would have the same legal protections as American workers. They could also travel between the United States and their home countries during the time they worked here.
Herman Martin, an undocumented construction worker from Guatemala who has been in this country for four years, likes the idea of the work permits. His comments are translated by Elsa Riveros, an organizer for the Tenents? and Workers? Support Committee in the Washington area.
Ms Riveros explained that Herman Martin has a very personal reason for giving the reaction he did.
Miguel Fuentes came to the United States from Honduras six years ago. His wife also made the trip, leaving their children -- one of them five, the other six years old -- with an aunt. They have not seen their children since then. Mr. Fuentes is a carpenter, but for the last four months he has been unemployed. He hopes the President?s proposal will help him and those like him to improve their situation.
Jose Rivera came to the Washington area from El Salvador nine years ago. He says he came, simply, so that he could stop being poor. Having worked as a landscaper for many employers in the years he has been here, Mr. Rivera has some practical concerns about the President?s proposal.
Jose Vanegas, a Latino community activist in the Washington area, welcomed the President?s proposal, but he looks at it with the realistic eye of someone who deals with immigrant workers on a regular basis.
Lieutenant Raul Castillo of the Fairfax Fire and Rescue Department immigrated to this country from Mexico with his parents when he was a child. He has a good career and leads a typical American middle-class life, but he sympathizes with the people who are less fortunate, and strongly supports the President?s initiative.
It is estimated that there are between eight and ten million illegal immigrants in the United States, the vast majority of them from Latin America. The President?s proposal has intensified the national debate on how to deal with this issue.