Bush’s “guest” worker plan could produce 103 million immigrants over 20 years

Back in January 2004, when President Bush first pushed his idea of letting into America all persons on earth who could underbid an American for a job, I said that this was the most radical proposal by any president in U.S. history. I said that it essentially transcended and cancelled out all existing immigration laws, because the number of persons who could underbid an American for a job would dwarf all existing limits and quotas.

The “temporary” guest worker provision in the Hagel-Martinez Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, S.2611, is the legislative incarnation of Bush’s open-border idea. According to Robert Rector in a stunning paper at the Heritage Foundation website, the “temporary” guest worker provisions would, under a medium projection, result in a total of 103 million immigrants over the next 20 years, one third the present population of the U.S. This is because all of the “guest” workers would be eligible, simply by signing up for an English class, for permanent legal resident status, and they could then bring their spouses and children to the U.S., without numeric limit. The number of “guest” workers would start at 325,000 the first year, and could, depending on employer demand, increase by as much as 20 percent per year after that, building an exponential rate of increase into the U.S. immigration inflow. Rector’s projection of 103 million new immigrants is based on a 10 percent annual increase for 20 years. If the annual number of guest workers increased by the maximum allowed amount of 20 percent per year, the number of new immigrants over 20 years would be 193 million (a number about equal to the entire U.S. population when the 1965 Immigration Act was passed). Even if the number of guest workers remained at the base rate of 325,000 per year, the total number of new immigrants would be 72 million over 20 years, 3 1/2 times the number that would be received under our current rate of about 1 million immigrants per year. See this chart, and this.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 15, 2006 01:53 PM | Send