Bush and immigration

David Frum on how Bush won re-election...:

President Bush won re-election because he won 10 million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000. Who were these people? According to Ruy Teixeira -- a shrewd Democrat analyst of voting trends -- Bush scored his largest proportional gains among white voters who didn't complete college, especially women. These voters rallied to the president for two principal reasons: because they respected him as a man who lived by their treasured values of work, honesty, and faith; and because they trusted him to keep the country safe.

...and on how Bush plans to throw it all away:

Yet Bush already is signaling that he intends to revive the amnesty/guest worker immigration plan he introduced a year ago -- and hastily dropped after it ignited a firestorm of opposition. This plan dangerously divides the Republican Party and affronts crucial segments of the Republican vote.

The plan is not usually described as an "amnesty" because it does not immediately legalize illegal workers in this country. Instead, it offers illegals a three-year temporary work permit. But this temporary permit would be indefinitely renewable and would allow illegals a route to permanent residency, so it is reasonably predictable that almost all of those illegals who obtain the permit will end up settling permanently in the United States.

The plan also re-creates the guest worker program of the 1950s -- allowing employers who cannot find labor at the wages they wish to pay to advertise for workers outside the country. Those workers would likewise begin with a theoretically temporary status; but they too would probably end up settling permanently.

This is a remarkably relaxed approach to a serious border-security and labor-market problem. Employers who use illegal labor have systematically distorted the American labor market by reducing wages and evading taxes in violation of the rules that others follow. The president's plans ratify this gaming of the system and encourage more of it. It invites entry by an ever-expanding number of low-skilled workers, threatening the livelihoods of low-skilled Americans -- the very same ones who turned out for the president in November.