Temporary worker program radically reduced—big defeat for the other side

I missed a key development earlier today or rather last night: the passage of an amendment that downgrades the “temporary” worker program to half its size and phases it out after five years. The AP reports:

Proponents in both parties were scrambling to find a way of reversing a blow their compromise sustained earlier Thursday, when the Senate voted to phase out the bill’s temporary worker program after five years.

The 49-48 vote just after midnight on making the temporary worker program itself temporary came two weeks after the Senate, also by a one-vote margin, rejected an amendment by Sen. Byron Dorgan to eliminate it entirely from the bill. The North Dakota Democrat says immigrants take many jobs Americans could fill.

Dorgan’s success on his second effort dismayed backers of the immigration bill, which is loathed by many conservatives.

Of course, the “temporary” “guest” invaders program is a key part of the Bush-Kennedy bill. With its being shrunken like this, many erstwhile supporters of the bill may back away from it. Ken Hechtman, a leftist Canadian journalist who reads VFR, writes:

Note that Byron Dorgan isn’t one of yours, he’s one of ours—an open-borders liberal. A lot of us hate the guest-worker scheme as much as you do even if it’s for different reasons. If and when this bill comes to the House, watch for Howard Berman (D-CA) to do the same thing.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 07, 2007 05:41 PM | Send