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March 13, 2007
Poor George: When it Comes to Immigration Policy, He Just Can’t
Judging from the reception he has received on his tour of Latin America, President Bush seems to be only slightly less popular in that part of the world than he is in San Francisco. It seems people in Latin America don't care much for his foreign policies, his trade policies, or the way he combs his hair. And even when he made a campaign swing through Guatemala promising "a better immigration policy" (for Guatemalans, not for Americans), he still couldn't please anyone.
President Bush has belatedly discovered that if he is to have any hope of getting his amnesty and guest worker program, he must demonstrate to the American public that he is willing and able to do some enforcement. So to burnish his credentials as an immigration enforcer, ICE has suddenly started raiding companies that have been flagrantly violating immigration laws, and even started deporting some of the illegal aliens who are caught.
To his American audience (if he still cares what they think), the administration's sudden interest in immigration enforcement is viewed with suspicion. To his Latin American audience Bush's failure to deliver the immigration goodies is one more grievance against the country they already blame for most of their failures. Guatemalan President Oscar Berger took the opportunity of Bush's visit to lecture him about deporting people "without any justification."
President Berger has 4 billion good reasons for being upset with his American counterpart. Even the mild enforcement effort underway is messing with the $4 billion that the 1.2 million Guatemalans in the U.S. send home every year, which now accounts for about 7 percent of GDP. Amnesty and an open door immigration policy would mean billions more to President Berger and other Latin American leaders. Continued enforcement, on the other hand, might force them to institute political and economic reform.
In a part of the world where the will of the public hasn't traditionally carried much weight, leaders seem to be growing impatient with President Bush's inability to overcome a pesky public that simply won't surrender its jobs, its social services and its ideas about sovereignty, and do as they are told.
Posted on at March 13, 2007 02:29 PM