Millions of illegal migrant farmers, hotel maids and others working in the shadows of US society would be freed from the threat of deportation for at least three years and could get a chance -- although probably remote for most -- at permanent legal US status under an election-year proposal that US President George W. Bush is asking Congress to approve.
Bush was to promote a major overhaul of US immigration policy -- and break a virtual silence on the issue since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- before scores of immigration-rights advocates in the East Room on Wednesday.
The president was to argue that his plan would make the US safer by giving the government a better idea of who was crossing US borders, bolster the economy by meeting employers' need for willing low-wage workers and fulfill a mandate for compassion by guaranteeing the rights and legitimacy of illegal workers, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters Tuesday.
Likely to be left unsaid during the president's speech were the political dividends White House advisers hoped the proposal would pay.
By dangling the prospect of legal status to some 8 million illegal immigrants now estimated to be in the country, about half of them Mexican, Bush was granting a top priority of the business community while making his most aggressive move yet to court Latino voters. He won just over one-third of that constituency in 2000 but wants to expand his support in the community to better his chances for re-election in November.
The proposal would provide a way for illegal immigrants who can show they have employment to work legally, although temporarily, in the US. The new ``temporary worker program,'' which also would include people still in their native countries who have a job lined up in the US, would not, like the temporary visa programs already in existence that involve mostly technical experts, apply only to a certain sector of the economy or industry.
Much of the detail of president's proposal was to be worked out by Congress in future negotiations with the White House.
For instance, Bush wants to increase the nation's yearly allotment of green cards that allow for permanent US residency, but won't say by how much, the officials said. Approximately 140,000 green cards a year are issued now.
Bush also wants the workers' first three-year term in the program to be renewable but won't say for how long; he won't set the amount workers should pay to apply for the program; and he won't specify how to enforce the requirement that no US worker wants the job the foreign worker is taking.
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