Dan Stein Middle Quotations

But there is not much hope for Americans in blue-collar work being able to hold their jobs if the guest worker proposal is adopted. Concerned citizens will not have much hope that today's illegal workers will leave the country after being given six-year work permits, and they will simply have to hope that there is still a middle class in a few years. President Bush also talked about 'stronger immigration enforcement and border protection,' and we might hope that after decades of broken promises that this time he really means it, but the record does not justify much hope.

Overcrowded, multilingual, schools will not become manageable because the kids are suddenly the children of guest workers, instead of illegal aliens. Millions of unskilled laborers will not magically become high-earning taxpayers because they have work visas. State budget crises will not be alleviated, housing will not become more affordable, traffic will not become less congested, and middle class jobs will not become more plentiful if we give everyone who is here, or who wants to come here, a piece of paper that says they're legal.

While countless Americans see their real wages falling, and are struggling to maintain a foothold in the middle class, Sen. Specter and President Bush are cooking up a plan that will lead to their marginalization. What they are trying foist upon the American public as 'immigration reform' will be a fraud-ridden amnesty and unlimited numbers of new guest workers to compete for the jobs American workers still hold. If this bill should ever be enacted, the America that most people know will become unrecognizable as a result of the most massive wave of immigration in history.

Every politician, and certainly every president, worries about how history will remember them. This administration and this Congress will either be remembered as the people who sent the nation hurtling down the path to catastrophic overpopulation, or the leaders who looked beyond the next election cycle and set the nation on a course of sustainable growth, with a vibrant and productive middle class.

A massive guest worker program is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. The real problem is a relentless assault on middle class workers in this country. The people gathering outside Sen. Feinstein's office will be seeking her leadership to save the middle class worker, before they really do become rarer than the California condor.

In reality, the choices we have before us are amnesty and guest workers on the one hand -- which would amount to a massive sell-out of the American middle class -- and, on the other hand, a comprehensive enforcement effort that eliminates the reasons why people come and remain in the U.S. illegally. There is a whole smorgasbord of options available to enforce our immigration laws, yet the president is still claiming that there is only one item on the menu.

The damage that the Domenici bill would do every aspect of life in America would be incalculable. In very short order, America would become a vastly overpopulated nation devoid of a middle class. The United States Senate owes it to the American public to reject this and similar amnesty and guest worker bills and focus on protecting our borders and the survival of the American middle class.