Registered: Not Yet
Location:
Posts: N/A

President Holds Press Conference
Room 450
Dwight DC Eisenhower Executive Office Building

10:32 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Mike, welcome.

Q -- since early in your first term you've talked about immigration
reform, but, yet, people in your own party on the Hill seem opposed to
this idea. And you've gotten opposition even on the other side. Do you
plan to expend some of your political capital this time to see this through?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I appreciate that -- well, first of all, welcome.
I'd like to welcome all the new faces -- some prettier than others, I
might add. (Laughter.) Yes, I intend to work with members of Congress to
get something done. I think this is a -- a issue that will make it
easier for us to enforce our borders. And I believe it's an issue that
is -- that will show the -- if when we get it right, the compassion,
heart of American people. And no question, it's a tough issue, just like
some of the other issues we're taking on. But my job is to confront
tough issues and to ask Congress to work together to confront tough issues.

Now let me talk about the immigration issue. First, we want our border
patrol agents chasing crooks and thieves and drug runners and
terrorists, not good-hearted people who are coming here to work. And
therefore, it makes sense to allow the good-hearted people who are
coming here to do jobs that Americans won't do a legal way to do so. And
providing that legal avenue, it takes the pressure off the border.

Now, we need to make sure the border is modern, and we need to upgrade
our border patrol. But if we expect the border patrol to be able to
enforce a long border, particularly in the south -- and the north, for
that matter -- we ought to have a system that recognizes people are
coming here to do jobs that Americans will not do. And there ought to be
a legal way for them to do so. To me, that is -- and not only that, but
once the person is here, if he or she feels like he or she needs to go
back to see her family, to the country of origin, they should be able to
do so within a prescribed -- in other words, and the card, the permit
would last for a prescribed period of time. It's a compassionate way to
treat people who come to our country. It recognizes the reality of the
world in which we live. There are some people -- there are some jobs in
America that Americans won't do and others are willing to do.

Now, one of the important aspects of my vision is that this is not
automatic citizenship. The American people must understand that. That if
somebody who is here working wants to be a citizen, they can get in line
like those who have been here legally and have been working to become a
citizen in a legal manner.

And this is a very important issue, and it's a -- and I look forward to
working with members of Congress. I fully understand the politics of
immigration reform. I was the governor of Texas right there on the front
lines of border politics. I know what it means to have mothers and
fathers come to my state and across the border of my state to work.
Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River, is what I used to
tell the people of my state. People are coming to put food on the table,
they're doing jobs Americans will not do.

And to me, it makes sense for us to recognize that reality, and to help
those who are needing to enforce our borders; legalize the process of
people doing jobs Americans won't do; take the pressure off of employers
so they're not having to rely upon false IDs; cut out the coyotes who
are the smugglers of these people, putting them in the back of tractor
trailers in the middle of August in Texas, allowing people to suffocate
in the back of the trucks; stop the process of people feeling like
they've got to walk miles across desert in Arizona and Texas in order
just to feed their family, and they find them dead out there. I mean,
this is a system that can be much better.

And I'm passionate on it because the nature of this country is one that
is good-hearted and compassionate. Our people are compassionate. The
system we have today is not a compassionate system. It's not working.
And as a result, the country is less secure than it could be with a
rational system.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/rele...20041220-3.html

Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged