Texans embrace Bush immigration plan

DALLAS — President Bush’s plan for vast new immigration legislation generally has received positive reaction throughout much of Texas.

But some said the timing of the proposal was obviously political and predicted the measure would face a tough fight in Congress. Others argued it would benefit those who have already broken U.S. laws.

“Sounds awfully good and imminently positive from my vantage point,” said Elmer Smith, 48, owner of a home-repair and roofing business in a Fort Worth suburb.

“It’s finally facing reality,” said Nick Jimenez, editorial-page editor of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. “Of course, the devil is always in the details.”

The Bush plan proposes a temporary-worker program that would match foreign workers with U.S. employers when no American workers are available for those jobs. The permits would be given for a three-year period and could be renewed.

“How are we going to prove that no Americans are available for these jobs?” asked Robert Hudkins, a San Antonio restaurant owner.

Mr. Hudkins said he occasionally has had to fire illegal workers who present forged documents. “What happens when we hire a good worker under this program and then two Americans show up complaining that they want the job? What then?”

Benjamin Price, who places part-time workers in jobs in the Austin area, praised the plan, but credited Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, not Mr. Bush, for “much of the meat.”

Mr. Cornyn introduced a bill in the Senate last July advocating many elements of the Bush proposal, but his bill offered no fast track to legal permanent residence.

The nation’s current stance on immigration is “dysfunctional,” Mr. Jimenez said.

“We have poured millions into the Border Patrol operation, we have all these electronics, sound sensors, these huge bright lights — and yet the message we send is: ’If you can make it in, you’re in!’ We say one thing and act out another.”

Benito Gasparez, 31, from Guanajuato, Mexico, paused at a building site in Garland, Texas, on Friday and could hardly contain his excitement. He was one of four Mexican workers doing tile and concrete work.

“At last, maybe we don’t have to run and hide and always worry about detention,” he said as two of his co-workers nodded assent. “Some of us have spent more time back and forth [being deported to Mexico by U.S. authorities] than we have in working,” he added.

Mr. Gasparez said one of his relatives died in the back of a tractor-trailer rig last May, abandoned along with 18 other illegals by a Mexican smuggling ring near Victoria, Texas.

“I think Mr. Bush feels for us,” he added.

Some distrusted the vagueness that guarantees a three-year permit, after which a foreign worker may apply for an extension.

“Do you mean you expect a person — a human being, probably with a family — to come here and work at a job no American wants for three years and then tell him you might allow him an extension?” asked Ramon Eisele, a truck driver from Laredo. “What kind of fair deal is that?”

In Fort Worth, four illegal immigrants huddled in near-freezing temperatures Friday afternoon near a convenience store, awaiting a ride home.

One, Luis Ernesto Valdez, 34, said, “I’d sign up the first day. Do you have any idea what life for us is worth? If we can save enough money to get to the border and successfully sneak across, then it becomes an everyday game of hide and seek.”