Evaluating a Temporary Guest Worker Proposal

Testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee on Immigration, Border Security, and Citizenship.

"Mr. Chairman, Senator Kennedy, Members of the Subcommittee. 

President Bush has challenged us to fix our broken immigration system. In presenting his vision, he has demonstrated remarkable political courage and a willingness to think outside of the box that has been unmatched by any other president in recent memory—and has created an opening for the US Congress and all of us to be equally thoughtful and courageous. 

The task is daunting. We are asked to re-engineer an immigration system riddled with bad or no longer relevant ideas and weighed down with the cumulative inconsistencies of more than a century of political expedience and “delicate” compromises. Furthermore, we all understand that we must do so in ways that are both politically feasible and can be administered with relatively few resources and little taste for regulation and enforcement. Finally, we must do so in a climate that is ambivalent at best—both about immigration and about immigrants. A tall order indeed, but one to which we must nonetheless respond. [...]"